One of the most common refrains you’ll hear from the pro-cannabis lobby is that marijuana is simply safer and wreaks less havoc on the body than alcohol consumption.
That lobby will often try to make that point about how much damage alcohol does to your kidney, and how alcohol can lead to a myriad of short-term side effects, like hangovers and vomiting.
About that: The pro-cannabis lobby may not be able to hang its hat on those points anymore.
A mysterious and deadly vomiting disorder tied to chronic, daily cannabis use is now officially recognized, according to Axios.
In October, the World Health Organization added an official diagnosis code, and formally named the condition “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.”
The main symptoms are nausea and vomiting, which had actually confounded researchers for a while.
“Physicians have struggled to differentiate the condition from medical issues like food poisoning or stomach flu, unless they were told the patient was a longtime cannabis user,” Axios noted.
The outlet added, “Hospital visits for the condition have remained steady and elevated since the pandemic, raising the call for more awareness to the syndrome.”
According to Fox News, the syndrome can cause severe nausea, repeated vomiting, abdominal pain, dehydration, and weight loss.
In more extreme cases, CHS can lead to heart rhythm problems, seizures, kidney failure, and death.
Fox News also noted that some patients have described the painful sensation as “scromiting” — uncontrollable vomiting combined with pained screaming.
Interestingly, there doesn’t appear to be a known “cure” for CHS, but there are some simple workarounds.
As Axios reported, to cure CHS, the only confirmed methodology would have you give up cannabis altogether. However, there is evidence showing that a hot bath or shower can squelch the symptoms as well.
“A telltale sign of CHS is that sufferers often find relief only by taking long, hot showers, a temporary fix scientists still don’t fully understand,” Fox News added.
CHS cases exploded during the COVID pandemic, with many researchers linking the isolation and subsequent depression to increased use of marijuana.
However, even apart from increased use, it’s also the increased strength of cannabis that could be contributing to CHS issues.
“In my opinion, and the research also supports this, the increased rates of CHS are absolutely linked to high-potency cannabis. Often, products are over 90% THC,” John Puls, a Florida-based psychotherapist and addiction expert, told Fox News.
(THC stands for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and is the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis that produces a “high.”)
Axios noted that in the past, the highest concentration of THC in cannabis was around 5 percent.
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