Originally published at: Scromiting: a nasty but rare side effect of marijuana use | Boing Boing
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This reminds me of the old days when they said weed would kill you. Of course you had to eat 2 pounds of it. So I have to ask, what is “too much?”
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Is it “rare” or merely bullshit? Color me skeptical.
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is this CHS attributed to only smoking cannabis, or does it refer to ingested THC as well? seems that one is more likely to experience this malady when overindulging in those tasty, tasty edibles, no?
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I’m just here to say that’s a lovely picture of a pot flower, especially if you view it in its own browser tab.
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‘I’m thinking it’s the Doritos actually.
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Oh thank goodness. I had the Idiocracy connotation of “scro” and assumed the emissions were coming from a different place.
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Rebecca Watson covered this as well in a recent video. Yeah, we were all dunking on some right wing dribble that claimed states like Colorado were going through a massive wave of weed-induced healthcare issues threatening to tumble the entire system and the scromiting comment got special attention for sounding so dumb. It IS, in fact, dumb the way they framed it of course, stating that the effects “cannot be cured.” When, in fact, the effects can be cured… just by not smoking weed for a while. And the rest of the massive healthcare issues regarding weed? Not evident actually.
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Whereas the vomiting induced by too much alcohol is perfectly natural.
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I’ve treated 2 kids for this, both related to use of wax, so no, not bullshit at all. Much higher risk with the crazy potent preparations, though.
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Unfortunately, it isn’t all that rare. I’ve treated quite a few patients with cannabis hyperemesis. The syndrome very much resembles cyclic vomiting syndrome, and sometimes it’s classified as such. The physiology is not all that well understood, particularly why it affects certain individuals but not others who have the exact same usage patterns. Typically, it happens in folks who have been daily (often heavy) smokers for many months or years. Most of the time (in my experience), folks don’t believe my diagnosis and recommended treatment - stopping use for at least several months - until they’ve had multiple rounds of a week of puking up their guts (usually feeling just fine on the off days/weeks).
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The trick is convincing someone to stop smoking for a bunch of months, especially when smoking more helped the nausea early on in the course of the illness.
Symptomatic treatment includes long, hot showers (folks usually figure this out themselves, and often it’s a helpful diagnostic clue). When the hot water runs out, capsaicin cream applied to the abdomen seems to provide a lot of benefit, as well.
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A small price to pay for ending an addiction.
My theory (old country doc, haven’t done research in many decades, so take it with a grain of salt or three) is that it is a tachyphylaxis-type reaction, as THC has a known antiemetic effect. The most effective “treatment” is to just stay stoned, which is the route one of my patients took. She told me not to bother lecturing her, she knew why she was puking, she knew what to do about, but she would rather stay stoned. The other went to opioids, OD’d and nearly died a few times, and is currently incarcerated. So, yeah, my success rate is pretty poor.
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I want to see the stats on how the people that suffer from this ingest cannabis. I’m betting this is a side effect of the chemicals used in vape juices/concentrates. Cannabis has been used for centuries to control nausea and stomach cramps, and now it suddenly is causing this? I have questions.
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It’s been decades but I seem to remember smoking weed so I could drink more without throwing up.
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I’d be interested to know what the demographics are for CHS. My guess is that it’s young men. The type of young men who join motorcycle gangs or jump Teslas over steep hills in L.A.
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I mean, it sort of makes sense that something which affects your nausea dial could potentially affect it the other way. I don’t find that part too far-fetched.
‘Course, in most cases it still doesn’t do that. If we were Vulcans, we’d pay 99% of attention to what happens 99% of the time and 1% of the attention to what happens 1% of the time. But as humans, we’re mainly interested in the rare-but-exciting cases.
When weed was illegal, people got their weed health advice from cool older brothers etc., and if you had a problem the solution was to drink water, go to bed and stop smoking weed. AFAICT that remains the solution in all cases; it’s just that now, more Americans have the option to make a medical drama out of it. And, you know, avoidable doctor visits prove you’re rich, so there’s that.
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I only have an n of 2. One certainly fits that. The other was a young woman who was otherwise pretty high achieving. 
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All those damn pointy corners. And how TF do they get them that shrill AF color?!
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