The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

Hey Julius: Sometimes I read about someone being "treated for marijuana ingestion" or "treated for marijuana intoxication". What does that mean?

I've read this before, often in news articles discussing someone who's... well... smoked a lot of pot. I tried to find references in various medical textbooks as to the recommended treatment for "marijuana intoxication". Unfortunately, my search came up with very little. As it turns out, there's not really much "treatment" per se -- the usual course of action is something like this:

1. Calm the patient down if they are anxious/panicking.
2. Keep the patient hydrated (i.e. offer a glass of water.)
3. Offer the patient something to eat.
4. Continue to calm the patient as necessary.

Basically, it amounts to waiting out the high until the person is no longer freaking out. Food helps reduce many people's high, and water can help prevent cottonmouth. The key part is simply talking to the patient: in pretty much every case when someone goes to the hospital for "marijuana overdose", it's because they were freaking out and thought that something was wrong with them. Simply talking to someone in this position can help reassure them that they're in no danger. After they're calm, it just becomes a waiting game: once the high's worn off, they're just stoned, and can go home.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Health/Medicine, Q/A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.