The number of children, teenagers, and young adults being rushed to hospital owing to cannabis-involved emergencies spiked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data published on July 13 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While cannabis-involved emergency department visits had already risen among young people up to the age of 14 prior to 2019, mean weekly cannabis-involved ED visits among all young persons under 25 years old were higher during 2020, 2021, and 2022, the CDC found.
The CDC used National Syndromic Surveillance Program data to examine changes in emergency department visits during 2019–2022, analyzing a weekly average of nearly 1,700 emergency departments that report to the program, as well as state and local health departments….