WASHINGTON – The most politically potent arguments against marijuana legalization have focused on the effects of looser marijuana laws on teens and children. Opponents say that legalization will lead to increased use among teens (so far it hasn’t), and recite the drug war mantra that it will “send the wrong message” (if so, it appears that kids aren’t listening).
Colorado’s market for edible marijuana products – pot-infused baked goods, candies, beverages and the like – has been a particular area of concern. The accidental ingestion of edibles by kids has received a huge amount of media attention. One widely reported study found that the number of kids younger than 12 who were admitted to the E.R. for accidental pot ingestion in Colorado jumped from zero to 14 after the state liberalized medical marijuana laws in October 2009.
Marijuana baked goods have been around for nearly as long as marijuana. And marijuana candy has been around for well over a decade, at least. And regardless of the delivery method - whether via edibles or smokes - cases of children being unintentionally exposed to marijuana are vanishingly rare.
Let’s zoom out to the national picture to take a look. The American Association of Poison Control Centers maintains the National Poison Data System, a near-realtime database of literally every call made to a poison control center in the U.S. Its most recent annual report, reflecting data from 2012, allows us to see the number of reported poisoning cases for marijuana, and to compare this to other common drugs and household substances, including over the counter painkillers, diaper creams and contact lens fluid.
For kids 12-and-under, cases of marijuana poisoning are incredibly rare. There were 254 such calls in 2012. By contrast, there were about 1,000 calls related to kids ingesting energy drinks, 1,600 for kids drinking contact lens fluid, and more than 4,000 for children who ate birth control pills.
Calls for caterpillar stings were twice as common as calls for marijuana exposure, and ingestions of liquid fabric softener were nearly three times as common.
Thirty-five thousand concerned parents called poison control when their offspring ate diaper creams, nearly 40,000 calls were for ingestion of acetaminophen, and 50,000 were related solely to kids eating too much ibuprofen. Across all substances, the vast majority of cases were for kids 5 and under.
The numbers are partly a function of the fact that ibuprofen and diaper cream are much more common than marijuana in households with small kids. But they suggest that parents who do smoke weed are, generally, doing a pretty good job of keeping it out of kids’ reach.
