'Start slow, go low and wait,' a doctor warns as cannabis edibles become legal for consumption in Canada
Dr. Lawrence Loh, adjunct professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said overdose from overconsumption often means a trip to the emergency room for those who are unaware that feeling the mellow effects of pot from edibles can take several hours because of the time needed to digest and absorb food into the small intestine versus quickly inhaling the drug through the lungs.
“I think the big thing for anyone in the public, especially cannabis-naive individuals or people who have edibles around with children at home, is to first and foremost avoid overdosing,” Loh said. Regulations governing edibles, beverages, vapes and topical forms of cannabis came into effect last October, a year after Canada legalized fresh or dried bud, oil, plants and seeds.
A University of Colorado School of Medicine study published last March in the Annals of Internal Medicine says an increase in emergency-room visits related to edibles prompted health experts to issue warnings about cardiac and psychiatric issues in the state that began selling recreational marijuana in 2014.
Dr. Jeff Finkler, an emergency-room physician at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, said he sees plenty of patients, mostly females in their late teens and early 20s, who come in having panic attacks or anxiety from eating too much of a cannabis-infused food and sometimes mixing it with alcohol or other substances.
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