Depending on your position, legal marijuana might raise images of stoners on every street corner or of users enjoying a private puff in their backyards. However you probably don't picture a child munching on a pot-laden brownie she found in her kitchen cupboard.
But as Stanford legal experts Robert MacCoun, PhD, and Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, point out in a commentary published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the loose state regulation of marijuana edibles creates some unnecessarily and potentially serious public health risks that should concern everyone.
Packaged in brightly colored wrappers, edibles often mimic popular sweets, but they contain a powerful dollop of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chemical responsible for marijuana's psychoactive effects. Some edibles contain multiple "servings" of THC per package.
Both Colorado and Washington — the two states with legal recreational marijuana — require "child-resistant" packaging and a warning to "keep out of the reach of children." But edibles remain quite attractive to children, who may confuse them with regular candies and snacks, and potentially deceptive to adults, who may assume one bar is a just one serving. "I look at these packages and I get hungry just looking at them," MacCoun said.
The edibles are not regulated as either a food or a drug by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, because the federal government considers marijuana illegal. Legalizing states have been slow to fill the gap, and have done so incompletely, Mello said. "This is sort of a weird space that's betwixt and between federal and state oversight," she said.
It's time for the medical community to get involved, MacCoun said. "Most people don't understand the brain metabolizes chemicals ingested by mouth differently than those smoked."
Ingested marijuana offers a delayed high, so people keep eating thinking they are fine. The intoxication lasts longer and is associated with more hallucinations and perceptual distortions, he said. "It's almost like a different drug."
For now, the issue is most pressing in Colorado and Washington, but many other states are considering legalizing recreational marijuana, including California, MacCoun said.
"We're not taking some strong position these products should be banned. Sensible and fairly modest regulations would reduce the risk without greatly restricting people's freedom to consume these products," MacCoun said.
Previously: Discussing the American Academy of Pediatrics' call to put the brakes on marijuana legalization, To protect teens' health, marijuana should not be legalized, says American Academy of Pediatrics and Medical marijuana not safe for kids, Packard Children's doc says
Photo by DEA
