Media Coverage

Francis Giles is a professor and chief of the division of hematology/oncology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He’s been in the field for nearly 30 years and also said that, while radiation and chemotherapy are still most often the best option, patients could one day see more targeted treatments like immuno-oncology. “The reason it’s very exciting is it may be the first page, but we don’t really understand yet how big the book is,” Giles said. “And we don’t yet understand, although we are beginning to … if you tell the immune system wake up, get stronger and while you’re at it, get stronger specifically against this malignancy.”

“Anecdotally, we noticed that most out-of-towners were in Colorado for other reasons, such as visiting friends or on business,” said lead author Howard Kim, an emergency medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine.

To see how the new laws affected emergency room visits in the state, the research team lead by Dr. Howard Kim, a postdoctoral fellow in emergency medicine at Northwestern University, used data collected from the UCHealth’s University of Colorado Hospital, which sees approximately 100,000 ER visits per year.

The study, from Northwestern Medicine and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, looked at ER visits at more than 100 hospitals in Colorado in which there was a diagnosis of patients having used cannabis. Researchers compared the records from 2012, when the Colorado ballot measure passed to legalize marijuana, with 2014, when it was legally sold for recreational use.

Out-of-state visitors to Colorado emergency rooms for marijuana-related symptoms accounted for 163 per 10,000 visits in 2014, up from 78 per 10,000 visits in 2012, according to research published by Dr. Howard Kim, a Northwestern research fellow and emergency medicine physician.

There are marijuana-specific tours, like those run by My 420 Tours, but many of these visitors seem to be in Colorado for other reasons, says lead author Dr. Howard Kim, an emergency medicine physician and a postdoc at Northwestern University. “I remember some business travelers who were in Denver on business, and after the meeting ended, they decided to try some marijuana edibles. Then they ended up cutting to the ER.”

“The biggest thing needs to be a public education campaign,” said lead investigator Dr. Howard Kim, a postdoctoral fellow in emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an emergency medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine.

“The thing we’d like to emphasize is that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has done a good job of educating residents about the health effects of marijuana legalization and marijuana use,” said Dr. Howard Kim, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Marijuana is sending visitors to Colorado to hospital emergency rooms at an increasing rate, according to a new study. The same isn’t true of Colorado residents, however. The results suggest that marijuana dispensaries need to do a better job of educating people buying their product, said the study’s lead author. “The thing we’d like to emphasize is that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has done a good job of educating residents about the health effects of marijuana legalization and marijuana use,” said Dr. Howard Kim, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Dr. Karen Sheehan, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, praised the study, calling it “amazing” because it relied on video inside cars. However, “since these people volunteered to be in the study and consented to be filmed, they are probably better drivers than non-volunteers. This is a scary thought because the study participants participate in plenty of less-than-model driving behaviors,” Sheehan said.