THC emergency room visits decrease in young Virginians

Charlottesville, Virginia – There is a decline in the number of young Virginians visiting emergency rooms for THC or hemp-related problems, according to new data from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.

According to the data, a new rule that regulated these items and went into effect in July may have contributed to the decrease in hospital visits among individuals under the age of 18.

“One of the reasons we share a lot of data-informed insights is because we want the public to understand those things that impact community health that impact their health,” VHAA Vice President of Communications Julian Waker said.

Walker claims that the number of young Virginians being admitted to hospitals due to exposure to THC or hemp-related items has been rising continuously for years.

“What our data analysis found is, in the six months after this law took effect July 2023 those numbers went down in a statistically significant way,” Walker said.

The director of the Blue Ridge Poison Center at the University of Virginia, Dr. Chris Holstege, claims that Charlottesville is experiencing the same issue.

“We now have seen a plateau of calls,” Dr. Holstege said.

Holstege’s statistics indicates that the Poison Center received 54 calls of this kind from individuals under the age of eighteen between July and December of 2022. Of these, 48 required hospitalization.
In 2023, there were 60 calls but only 40 hospital visits within the same period.

“What we’ve seen is a decrease,” Dr. Holstege said. “First time that we’ve seen a decrease in children going to the emergency departments for care, and that part’s good.”

The packaging and labeling of these products, as well as their sale, are subject to stricter legal controls.
Even though this evidence is still preliminary, Dr. Holstege believes it’s encouraging.

“We just looked at six months of data, and I’ll be curious to see once we get a year’s worth of data compared to the other years, but that part at least is encouraging that it’s plateauing or potentially dropping,” Dr. Holstege said.