Marijuana Recently Legalized in Your State?

As more states legalize the use of recreational marijuana, more studies are being published about its association with medical or traumatic complaints (e.g., hyperemesis, butane hash oil burns). Emergency physicians in Colorado, which legalized marijuana in 2012, have reported anecdotal evidence of an increase in psychiatric complaints in patients presenting with cannabis use. To further examine this potential effect, researchers in Colorado reviewed ICD-9 codes in a statewide database to quantify the prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses in emergency department (ED) visits related to cannabis use compared to other ED visits. Given the potential limitations of a statewide coding database, the researchers validated their results by reviewing I…