More Patients at ERs Citing Pot Use

Las Vegas Sun ^ | 23 August 2002

[JediGirl]

CARSON CITY -- A federal study that shows drug-related emergency room visits are on the rise takes aim at marijuana use.

The survey, by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said drug-related emergency room visits rose 6 percent in 2001 over the previous year, to 638,484.

The number of times marijuana was mentioned as a drug patients used rose 15 percent, the study said, greater than the increase in cocaine use, which rose 10 percent, and heroin and methamphetamine, which were unchanged.

The study, which surveys 458 hospital emergency rooms nationwide, comes as Nevada and Arizona consider ballot questions that would legalize or decriminalize marijuana.

"Marijuana-related medical emergencies are increasing at an alarming rate, exceeding even those for heroin," White House Drug Czar John Walters said in a prepared statement. "This report helps dispel the pervasive myth that marijuana is harmless.

"In reality, marijuana is a dangerous drug, and adults and youth alike should be aware of the serious consequences that can come from smoking it."

Billy Rogers, leader of the campaign to pass Nevada's ballot question, which would legalize possession of up to three ounces of marijuana, disputed the conclusions.

"They're not talking about marijuana emergencies," Rogers said. "Nobody has died from an overdose of marijuana."

When patients go to an emergency room, they are asked what, if any, drugs they have taken. The federal Drug Abuse Warning Network counts the mentions of illegal drugs and misused prescription drugs reported by patients, and those are compiled into the twice-a-year study. Often patients said they had taken more than one drug.

Alcohol in combination with other drugs was the most frequently mentioned nationwide, at 34 percent, with cocaine at 30 percent, marijuana at 17 percent and heroin, 15 percent.

Marijuana had been used in combination with other drugs 76 percent of the time it was mentioned; 24 percent of the time, it was the sole drug used.

The increase in marijuana use reflected in emergency room visits drew federal concern. Between 1994 and 2001, mentions of marijuana per 100,000 emergency room patients rose 151 percent, compared with 34 percent for heroin and 22 percent for cocaine.

The rate for patients age 12 to 17, although stable from 2000 to 2001, increased 23 percent from 1999 to 2001, the report said.

"The clear message of the DAWN survey is that in already crowded emergency rooms, increasingly, one of the reasons people are showing up is marijuana use," said Mark Weber, spokesman for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"It's taking resources from other parts of the health care sector. If you have 10 people in a room, how do you prioritize?"

The study gave separate reports for 21 cities, but Las Vegas was not among them. Neither the state nor county health division had statistics for Nevada or Las Vegas on those treated in emergency rooms with marijuana problems, and University Medical Center does not track drug use by type of drug, a spokesman said.

Local paramedics said they have noticed an increase in drug use overall in Las Vegas, but not in marijuana, said Tammy Bame, spokeswoman for American Medical Response.

"No one seems to feel there is an increase," Bame said. "There's nothing that really stands out."

AMR paramedic Shannon Cavey said Thursday the top drugs she sees in the Las Vegas area are crystal meth, GHB and Ecstasy, drugs not frequently used with marijuana.

"We see a lot more of those than people just getting high ( on marijuana )," Cavey said.

Alcohol, another depressant, is the drug most commonly associated with marijuana use, she said.

In fact, pot is rarely a topic during her shifts, she said.

"I don't hear about it much in the field," Cavey said.

An informal poll at Valley Hospital showed a similar result. Emergency room personnel have not noticed any increase in marijuana-related cases, spokeswoman Gretchen Pappas said.

"We haven't seen anything like that," Pappas said.

Weber, of SAMHSA, agreed that in Western cities use of club drugs and methamphetamine has been more prevalent since the early 1990s. But across the country, he said, more young people are in drug treatment for marijuana dependence that all other illegal drugs combined.

As with any depressant, marijuana can be dangerous when taken with other depressants, Cavey said. However, a marijuana-only overdose is rare, said Cavey, who has been a paramedic for 10 years.

"I have never even seen anyone overdose on marijuana," Cavey said. "It's always been mixed with something else."

Rogers said there is going to be a lot of smoke blown in this election campaign and his job is to cut through it to get the facts.

Besides allowing the possession of up to three ounces of marijuana by adults, the constitutional amendment would allow the state Legislature to set up "pot shops" to distribute marijuana.

It would still be illegal for minors to possess the drug.

"Nevadans are smart enough to know that heroin and cocaine are dangerous and marijuana is less dangerous," Rogers said.

[JediGirl]

bong

[JediGirl]

Weber, of SAMHSA, agreed that in Western cities use of club drugs and methamphetamine has been more prevalent since the early 1990s. But across the country, he said, more young people are in drug treatment for marijuana dependence that all other illegal drugs combined.

And they all laugh about it as well. They're forced into treatment for simply using the drug.

"I have never even seen anyone overdose on marijuana," Cavey said. "It's always been mixed with something else."

DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winner, folks!

[Roscoe]

Between 1994 and 2001, mentions of marijuana per 100,000 emergency room patients rose 151 percent, compared with 34 percent for heroin and 22 percent for cocaine.

Yikes!

[philman_36]

The survey, by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said drug-related emergency room visits rose 6 percent in 2001 over the previous year, to 638,484.

From...

(Take Action Against Substance Abuse and Gun Violence)
Survey Shows Increase in Marijuana, Cocaine Emergency Room Visits
New data in the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) shows that emergency department visits for cocaine increased 10 percent and marijuana increased 15 percent from 2000 to 2001, according to an Aug. 21 press release from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Hmmmm...

In 2001, there were 638,484 drug-related ED episodes in the coterminous U. S. (Table 2.2.0), a rate of 252 ED episodes per 100,000 population (Table 12.2.0). On average, 1.8 drugs were reported per episode for a total of 1,165,367 drug mentions. ED drug mentions and ED drug episodes each increased 6 percent from 2000 to 2001 (Table 2.2.0). Total ED visits (that is, ED visits for any reason) increased 5 percent (from 96.1 million to 100.5 million) during this period.

Eight out of every 10 ED drug mentions (82%) come from only 7 categories: alcohol-in-combination, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and analgesics. In 2001, alcohol-in-combination was a factor in 34 percent of ED drug episodes (218,005 mentions), cocaine in 30 percent (193,034), marijuana in 17 percent (110,512), and heroin in 15 percent (93,064). Taken together, the benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and analgesics constituted 339,484 ED mentions in 2001, or nearly 30 percent of total ED drug mentions.

Snip...Drug Episode: A drug-related ED episode is an ED visit that was induced by or related to the use of an illegal drug( s) or the nonmedical use of a legal drug for patients age 6 to 97 years.
Drug Mention: A drug mention refers to a substance that was recorded (" mentioned") during a drug-related ED episode. Because up to 4 drugs (and alcohol) can be reported for each drug abuse episode, there are more mentions than episodes cited in this report.
Snip...his (sic) issue of Emergency Department Trends From DAWN presents final estimates for 2001, with comparisons to 1994, 1999, and 2000. The revised estimates in the ED Trends From DAWN publication series supersede the estimates published previously for 1994 through 2001.
Snip...Marijuana: Marijuana mentions increased 15 percent (from 96,426 to 110,512) from 2000 to 2001 (Tables 2.2.0 and 3.12). Comparing estimates for 2000 and 2001, increases in marijuana mentions were evident for Minneapolis (49%, from 803 to 1,200), San Diego (16%, from 955 to 1,107), Seattle (13%, from 1,414 to 1,596), San Francisco (12%, from 627 to 704), and Baltimore (10%, from 1,620 to 1,786). Decreases occurred only in New Orleans (-24%, from 1,068 to 814).
"Estimates" and from only 21 metropolitan areas.

Please take me off of your ping list JediGirl. You really should read the reports...
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/DAWN/Final2k1EDtrends/text/EDtrend2001v6.pdf and you can use this Adobe PDF Conversion by Simple Form. Just copy and paste.

[philman_36]

Read #5 Mr. "Yikes". You may learn something too, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[philman_36]

One more little snippet...
Not all cases involving prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are reportable to DAWN. However, DAWN receives reports of ED episodes involving the nonmedical use of legal drugs. These can involve deliberate abuse of prescribed or legally obtained over-the-counter (OTC) medications or of pharmaceuticals diverted for abuse. Accidental overdoses or ingestions with no intent of abuse, or adverse reactions to OTC or prescription drugs taken as directed are not reportable to DAWN unless they were present in combination with an illicit drug. Only generic drug names are presented in DAWN publications. DAWN estimates should not be attributed to drugs marketed under particular brand (trade) names.
DAWN estimates that other substances of abuse (495,808 mentions) accounted for 43 percent of total ED drug mentions in 2001 (Table 2.2.0). Although the vast majority of these other substances are marketed legally by prescription or over the counter, it is impossible to know from DAWN the number of ED visits related to the abuse of prescription drugs by the person for whom the drug was prescribed for a therapeutic purpose.

[Tall_Texan]

Was this before or after the FReeper convention?

[LIBERTARIAN JOE]

Your post #5 was incomplete... didn't see anything about MJ making horrible negroes rape white womens (thank God I'm white. Think of all the women I'd have raped after 25+ years of smokin')

[putupon]

Inhaling oxygen causes medical problems. 100% of all emergency room patients have inhaled oxygen at some point before their emergency room visit.

[philman_36]

And a couple of more little factoids...
These revisions to estimates published previously are the result of a major change in the underlying method by which drugs are coded and classified in DAWN. DAWN relies on a detailed "drug vocabulary" to categorize the thousands of substances that are reported each year. The drug vocabulary is, literally, the language— the codes and terminology— that DAWN uses to record and classify drugs and other substances collected from EDs. It was necessary to implement substantial changes to the existing vocabulary to ensure that reported substances are accurately and consistently classified. The overhaul and replacement of the DAWN drug vocabulary as well as the first publication of the revised trends are described in detail in Emergency Department Trends From the Drug Abuse Warning Network Preliminary Estimates January – June 2001 with Revised Estimates 1994 – 2000. 5 In addition, a separate methodology publication focusing exclusively on the drug vocabulary is forthcoming.

Snip...In 2001, the DAWN sample consisted of 564 eligible hospitals. Of these, 458 (81%) participated in DAWN. Response rates in the 21 metropolitan areas ranged from 58 percent to 100 percent, with only 2 metropolitan areas having response rates below 75 percent (Table 1.1). The 2001 sample of hospitals submitted data on 196,268 drug abuse episodes with an average of 1.8 drug mentions per episode (Table 1.3).

Snip...The DAWN reporter submits an episode report to the DAWN system for each patient who visits a DAWN ED and meets certain criteria. To be included in DAWN, the patient presenting to the ED must meet all of the following criteria:
The patient was age 6 to 97;
The patient was treated in the hospital's ED;
The patient's presenting problem( s) (i. e., the reason for the ED visit) was induced by or related to drug use, regardless of when the drug use occurred;
The episode involved the use of an illegal drug or the use of a legal drug or other chemical substance for nonmedical purposes; and
The patient's reason for using the substance( s) was dependence, suicide attempt or gesture, and/ or psychic effects.

Don't you just love "representative sampling"!

[philman_36]

...drug-related emergency room visits rose 6 percent in 2001 over the previous year, to 638,484.
I liked...Total ED visits (that is, ED visits for any reason) increased 5 percent (from 96.1 million to 100.5 million) during this period.
These were apparently "sober" people! They're almost as bad as drug users without being messed up in any fashion or form! Go figure!
So..."Marijuana-related medical emergencies are increasing at an alarming rate, exceeding even those for heroin," White House Drug Czar John Walters said in a prepared statement. "This report helps dispel the pervasive myth that marijuana is harmless.
...makes me think that...
Non-drug related medical emergencies are increasing at an alarming rate, exceeding even those for heroin. This report helps dispel the pervasive myth that sobriety is ???(somebody help me here...).

[philman_36]

DAWN
Snip...Tabulations based on the new drug vocabulary were introduced with the publication of emergency department estimates for calendar year 2001. (The publication, Mortality Data from DAWN, uses the same underlying drug vocabulary, but displays its data in formats specifically designed for that component.) The standard tables now used in DAWN ED publications are designed to achieve 5 goals:
1. Highlight Illicit Drugs of Special Interest
Snip...subset of 1...the most common illicit drugs (e.g., cocaine, heroin, marijuana),

Are you beginning to get the picture?

And get this too...http://www.dawninfo.net/pdf/EDtrends.pdf#AppendixA
There are some real doozies in there. Like this...
This issue of ED Trends from DAWN presents for the first time preliminary estimates for January to June of 2001, with comparisons to the same months of 2000. In addition, this publication introduces recent changes in the way DAWN codes and classifies drugs; and it addresses the impact of these changes on estimates published previously for 1994 to 2000.

And this...From January to June 2001, DAWN estimates that there were 308,368 drug-related ED episodes in the coterminous U. S. with 559,334 drug mentions ( Table 2.1.0) . Both ED drug episodes and ED drug mentions were statistically unchanged, based on comparisons of the first half of 2000 and the first half of 2001.
Comparing preliminary estimates for the first half of 2000 and the first half of 2001 for the 21 metropolitan areas oversampled in DAWN ( Table 3.1) : Increases in drug episodes were evident only for Minneapolis ( 18% ) , Boston ( 10% ) , and Baltimore ( 9% ) . Decreases in drug episodes occurred in San Francisco ( -12% ) and Dallas ( -8% ) .

And this...Alcohol use is reported to DAWN only (emphasis in original, not mine) when consumed in combination with a reportable substance.
And this...The DAWN estimates for 2001 are the first to utilize population data from the 2000 decennial Census.
And this, which to me is the piece de resistance...The number of ED episodes reported to DAWN is not equivalent to the number of individual patients, because one person may make repeated visits to an ED. DAWN data contain no individual identifiers, which would be required to estimate repeat visits. Therefore, the estimates presented in this publication pertain to total ED episodes or drug mentions, not to the number of different patients involved.

There is a lot more in there too. Do not play poker with the .gov, they keep changing the rules of the game.

[philman_36]

I'd like some opinions/comments from the rest of you if ya'll don't mind.

[Looking4Truth]

More bullsh*t.

Follow the money. The professional 'substance abuse' experts love this stuff.

Joe Blow gets in an auto accident and has to be taken to the hospital. The cops find a 2 month old roach in his ashtray and suddenly the accident is 'drug related'.

The professional victim makers (i.e. treatment centers) get the next INVOLUNTARY referral.

Oh yeah, and poor ol' Joe loses his license to boot.

[Looking4Truth]

My last post was a bad example, Joe shouldn't have had a roach in the car.

Ol' Joe walks down to the river to go fishing. He slips and falls causing a visit to the emergency room. The staff question him about his entire chemical using history and he admits that he has smoked weed before.

Ding. ding. ding. New referral for the treatment center and another 'drug related' accident for the stats.

[Looking4Truth]

True story:

Ol' Joe's son and his buddies (all over 18) do walk to the river to go fishing. They get high on the riverbank. Nosey busybody calls cops. Joe's kid and his buddies get busted. Joe's kid loses his license to drive for six months just for smoking a joint while sitting on a riverbank. Joe's son sent to MANDATORY 'drug counseling' at his own expense before he can get the license back.

[Roscoe]

"I have never even seen anyone overdose on marijuana," Cavey said. "It's always been mixed with something else."

That's the nature of the potheads who want us to pick up their tab.

[philman_36]

You got anything to say about the other information I've posted regarding this survey or not? If not, drop the game.
As it stands from my POV you can't say a thing about it because it is a farce and you are going to continue with your same old tired schtick.
How pathetic. I try to show what is going on and you make more stupid @$$ remarks. I really don't understand you.
If you don't have anything besides stupid comments you can play the game with yourself.

[uncbob]

How many times POT mentioned in conjunction with booze