More Colorado Tourists Visit Emergency Room Complaining Marijuana Complications

A new study reveals that an increase has been noticed in the number of outsiders than natives of Colorado visiting emergency rooms related to marijuana intake. Purchasing marijuana is legal in Colorado. The results of study will be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The doctors looked at marijuana-related emergency-room admissions at a hospital near Denver International Airport during 2014. They found that number of tourist visits to emergency rooms doubled from 85 in 2013 to 168 in 2014; both were out of 1000 visits. On the other hand, the number for native resident remained almost constant over the period, changing slightly from 106 per 1000 in 2013 to 112 per 1000 in 2014.

Then doctors compared hospital figures to data from the Colorado Hospital Association. They found that tourist admission to emergency rooms increased in every 1000 visits over the years. They increased from 78 in 2012 to 112 in 2013 to 163 visits in 2014. Likewise, there was increase in resident admissions from 61 to 70 to 86 to 101 in respective years, each in every 1000 visits.

The nature of complaints also varies with both kinds of visits. Residents mostly complained about of gastrointestinal problems, whereas the outsiders were facing ailments, such as psychiatric, including aggressive behavior and hallucinations. There weren’t much difference in their average ages. The average age of Coloradans was 34 years, while for their counterparts, the age exceeded by one-and-half years.

“We didn’t expect people from out of state to actually be coming to the emergency department mentioning this drug more often,” said Dr. Andrew Monte, a toxicologist and emergency-room physician at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora. The new findings came as a surprise to doctors.