Danger is Down

Since legalization in 2014, health officials in Colorado have been monitoring health and safety effects and digging through data regarding legal cannabis.

Three years into the legal era, the Retail Marijuana Public Health Advisory Committee reported that poison control calls and emergency room visits related to cannabis are down. Researchers have claimed that this is proof society is learning from legal cannabis due to experience and seeing more truths than fabrications and scare tactics about cannabis in the media. These scientists hope to use the positive results to create more fact-based information about cannabis for educational purposes.

In addition to the positive data regarding hospital visits, the results also revealed that cannabis use in high school students has not increased, as many feared it would if legalization was passed. More specifically, when compared to national data, it revealed that high school cannabis use in Colorado is still in line with the national average, implying that cannabis use by teens does not increase in a state that permits recreational cannabis consumption for adults.

“In Colorado, the drop in emergency room visits is a product of both recreational legalization and the education campaigns created since.”

The study also showed that only about one to 14 households out of 16,000 with children that consumed cannabis may potentially be storing the cannabis in an unsafe way. This dispels one of the other frequent worries about cannabis—the idea that keeping cannabis in the home endangers children. Some are concerned that the data reveals six percent of women use cannabis during their pregnancies, two points more than the national average. However, since THC-free alternatives like CBD for pain and topicals are available in Colorado, it is possible that these women are using milder substances.

The report also included some data that, while less socially or politically charged, could lend some important information to the marketing industry. The average of legal adults smoking cannabis in Colorado is higher than the national average, and most Coloradans choose to smoke their cannabis rather than vape or consume edibles. Males also ranked as the largest pool of cannabis consumers in the state.

“In Colorado, the drop in emergency room visits is a product of both recreational legalization and the education campaigns created since,” explained Emalee Hyde, Founder and Chairman of the cannabis charity Viverde and CEO of marketing company Sinsemilla and the City. “Since implementation in 2014, Coloradans that are 21 and older have had open access to variety of options of cannabis products. Teaching the residential and tourist populations how to use these options has inspired many organizations such as IMPACT Network, Viverde, CannaCloset and others, including government created campaigns, to get creative with education.”

As long as these periodic studies of cannabis data continue to combat the initial worries of cannabis reform opponents, legal states will be able to paint a much clearer picture of cannabis use trends and truths.