Nearly 8,000 people reported adverse effects after consuming products containing delta-8 THC or other intoxicating hemp compounds between 2021 and 2023, according to the US Network of Poison Control Centers.
More than half of the reports to the National Poison Data System (NPDS) came from children under the age of 19, and as many as 2,300 involved children under the age of six, according to Highly Legal, a cooperative journalism effort among AL based in Alabama. .com, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, PennLive and USA TODAY reporting on new cannabis products.
According to the reporting initiative, consumers reported uncomfortable highs and, in some cases, panic attacks, psychosis and hospitalization after consuming the synthetic psychoactive compounds in edibles known as diet weed, marijuana light or gas station .
Marketing hooks
In addition to being widely available in convenience stores, wineries, CBD shops and other mainstream outlets, online ads are also driving the products, which are offered as gummies and other edibles marketed as fully natural or made in the USA. Consumption is also fueled. by online forums and social media, where some users suggest that hemp products help relieve PTSD and chronic pain, according to the report.
Most of the compounds are produced synthetically by a process in the laboratory of CBD derived from hemp. In addition to delta-8 THC, the most popular substance producers also make synthetic delta-10 THC, THC-O-acetate, and THCP. The products are sold as an alternative to marijuana, which contains the psychoactive compound delta-9 THC.
In a recent National Institutes of Health survey of more than 2,000 high school students, 11% said they had used delta-8 in the past 12 months.
Anecdotal reports
A group of Wyoming high school students successfully lobbied for a law banning intoxicating hemp products after several of their classmates suffered health problems from delta-8 THC. The legislation was prompted by reports that six teenagers at Cody High School (CHS) were taken to the emergency room after consuming a product with the compound.
In 2022, a group of 14-year-olds in Minnesota who consumed high doses of delta-8 in gummies said they had delayed speech, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, tremors and other difficulties, according to a report filed in US Food & Food. Drug Administration (FDA). Some of the students were crying, restless and upset. They said they felt like they were dying, according to the report.
Later that year, the states’ board of pharmacy filed a civil suit against Northland Vapors, the company behind the product, for selling products that contained more than 50 times the state’s legal limit for THC. The company settled the lawsuit in January, agreeing to pay the Pharmacy and Health Department $105,000 in fines.
Also in 2022, the death of a Virginia boy was attributed to excessive delta-8 ingestion from eating jelly beans, leading to a felony murder and child neglect charges against his mother. The death was officially ruled an accident attributable to delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol toxicity by the Central District of Virginia Office of the Medical Examiner’s Center, although some cannabis experts have questioned that conclusion.
The FDA has repeatedly warned growers about what it considers to be the illegal sale of products containing hemp’s intoxicating compounds.
Zombie substances
Labs that analyze cannabis say they have found many undesirable by-products in intoxicating hemp products. We typically see seven to 30 different chemical compounds that don’t exist in nature, Chris Hudalla, president and chief scientific officer of ProVerde Laboratories in Massachusetts, told Highly Legal. These are new chemical compounds that are accidentally made during the synthesis process
Hudalla said the long-term effects of consuming these synthetic compounds remain unknown.
If they cause cancer, we don’t know. If they cause birth defects [we dont know.] These have not been studied in rats or mice. We don’t have names for them, he said
In addition to unknown contaminants in some products, many also contain up to 10 times more intoxicating hemp compounds than what the package claims, a Virginia Commonwealth University testing lab found.
This is extremely common because the unregulated market doesn’t really know how much of their active ingredient they should put in their product, said Adie Rae Wilson Poe, a neuroscientist at Oregon’s Legacy Research Institute who is studying the role of cannabinoids in pain relief. So what do they do? They make them strong.
#Adverse #reports #intoxicating #hemp #products #affect #age #groups
Image Source : hemptoday.net