From: Dr Karen Randall – Vermont School of Medicine
Sent: 01 May 2025 02:55
There is no other medication on the market where a patient can decide what type and how much to consume. And, as with all medications, the more is not always the merrier. Every drug has an LD50 where the harms exceed the benefits. Given the high potency of most products, the LD50 is lower and the harms more evident. Every day, as I start my shift in the emergency ward, I would guess that 1/4 to 1/3 are directly a consequence of cannabis
-cannabis hyperemesis – here’s a very simple calculation of low end estimated costs. We see a hyperemesis patient at least once a day. If this patients treated in the ER – IV fluids, medications without x-rays/ct scan/admission, the cost is about 5000 US dollars (likely higher now). For a year, that cost – is ~1.8 million dollars. There are 25 ERs in Colorado the yearly cost is 45.6 million dollars! These are for very simple visits and this is a very low estimate. Add on cost for CT scan, Ultrasounds, X-rays, admission, etc and the cost skyrockets. The county that I live in was promised so much money in tax revenue. Last year, this county took in less than 200,000. So, the cost of treatment for one associated disease entity is higher than tax excess. The remaining health care costs get passed to the public/the citizens. Meanwhile the cannabis companies take out the profits and go.
- -cannabis psychosis
- -accidental ingestions
- -cardiovascular injuries – MI, heart failure
- -lung damage
- -pregnancy harms
And the list goes on.
Additionally, likely half of the ED visits I see are related to abuse of a substance of some sort.
In the states, cannabis as a medicine is most definitely held to the same standards of quality, purity and dosing as FDA approved medications. The industry also touts a plethora of diseases that are cured by cannabis;
The above is a published diagram of all the ailments “treated” by cannabis. One is that it treats cancer – most cancer medications go through years of rigorous testing and then blinded studies prior to being approved. And yet, the cannabis industry puts these claims out and people fall for the rhetoric. I saw a 42 y/o male who had liver cancer – he opted to treat with cannabis. By the time I saw him, he was immediately placed into hospice and died 3 days later as his cancer had widely spread.
I have, from the last 10 years, thousands of clinical stories of harms that we seen in the ER. Costs are exorbitant. But wait to until the long term side effects happen – lung disease will be more rapid, more advanced and less reversible than that of cigarettes. Cardiovascular side effects – hardening of the arteries, heart attacks – will leave many younger people (40’s) with life long debilitating cardiac disease. And finally, I believe we will see a marked increase in the number of people diagnosed with early onset dementia – since cannabis is a soil scrubber – it has the potential for many contaminants. Many of these contaminants are heavy metals. Heavy metals get deposited in the brain/amygdala and will remain there for the life of the person – leading to earlier onset dementia. Additionally, as cannabis hardens/alters the cardiac arteries, it also hardens intracranial arteries – leading to decreased blood flow and strokes.
Source: Dr. Karen Randall, FAAEM, Certified in Cannabis Science and Medicine – University of Vermont School of Medicine