The numbe of children \u2014 especially very young ones \u2014 ingesting marijuana is rising in Colorado\u2002despite regulations meant to keep edibles out of kids\u2019 hands, and state leaders said they have no plans to revisit those rules this year.
\nThe number of reports the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety office received of kids age 5 or younger exposed to marijuana\u00a0skyrocketed from 56 in 2017 to 151\u00a0in 2021. By 2021, this age group made up nearly half of all marijuana exposures \u2014 in which the drug is ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin \u2014 reported to the office, which is part of the nonprofit Denver Health organization.
\nIn each of those five years, children were most often accidentally exposed by eating edibles \u2014 gummies, cookies, drinks, and other products infused with the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC \u2014 and not by inhaling smoke or consuming the drug in other forms, like capsules or tinctures. In 2017, 35 children age 5 or younger were unintentionally exposed to marijuana through edibles, compared with 97 in 2021. Exposures don\u2019t necessarily mean the children were poisoned or overdosed, according to the poison and drug safety office.
\nMarijuana exposures among children are increasing nationwide, with Colorado playing a notable role in this trend. However, the federal government has yet to create uniform protocols, and Colorado health officials haven\u2019t conveyed any plans to revise the regulations meant to prevent children from consuming marijuana.
\n\u201cMarijuana laws and regulations are regularly evaluated by lawmakers, state agencies, local agencies and the various stakeholders,\u201d Shannon Gray, a spokesperson at the Marijuana Enforcement Division, which regulates the marijuana industry in the state, wrote in an email to KHN. \u201cA top priority is preventing youth access and to the extent we see opportunity in rules to address youth access, we do so.\u201d
\nSince legalized recreational marijuana sales began in 2014, Colorado has implemented a handful of directives to stop children from mistaking these products for safe, delicious sweets.
\nData from Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety does not distinguish between incidents involving marijuana sold by licensed retailers and those involving marijuana from sources that don\u2019t follow the state\u2019s packaging rules, state health department spokesperson Gabi Johnston told KHN.
\nWhen asked whether the mandates are effective, Gray said the Marijuana Enforcement Division has \u201cobserved material compliance with these regulations\u201d among marijuana businesses.
\nRegulation changes could be considered, including those proposed by state legislators, Gray said. But no forthcoming bills concern edible mandates, according to Jarrett Freedman, spokesperson for the Colorado House of Representatives majority. Democrats control both houses of the state legislature.
\nOne limitation of regulating marijuana packaging is that most children 5 and younger can\u2019t read, said Dr. Marit Tweet, a medical toxicologist at the\u00a0Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. And, she said, many parents don\u2019t know how to store marijuana safely.
\nThe state health department has worked to address this knowledge gap through its\u00a0Retail Marijuana Education program, established in 2014 to teach the public about safe, legal and responsible cannabis use. One fact sheet advises parents to store marijuana in a locked area, keep products in child-resistant packaging and avoid using marijuana around children.
\nPublic health officials also launched\u00a0a series of marijuana education campaigns\u00a0in 2018 targeting new parents and adults who influence kids\u2019 behavior. Between fiscal years 2015 and 2020, the department spent roughly $22.8 million on those efforts.<\/p>\n
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The numbe of children \u2014 especially very young ones \u2014 ingesting marijuana is rising in Colorado\u2002despite regulations meant to keep edibles out of kids\u2019 hands, and state leaders said they have no plans to revisit those rules this year. The number of reports the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety office received of kids age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1301,1369,1456],"class_list":["post-5401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-colorado","tag-kids","tag-marijuana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10184,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401\/revisions\/10184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}