Study finds rise in accidental marijuana ingestion by children in Colo.

May 30 2013

The report in JAMA Pediatrics looked at children who accidentally ate marijuana and needed emergency treatment.

Health Policy Solutions (a Colo. news service): Accidental Pot Ingestion Spikes In Babies, Kids
Since medical marijuana has become legal in Colorado, doctors have seen a dramatic spike in the number of babies and children who accidentally ate marijuana and needed emergency treatment. A new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics found that 14 children needed to be treated at Children's Hospital Colorado for accidental pot ingestion after 2009, when medical marijuana shops began to proliferate in Colorado. ...  [The authors] pressed successfully for childproof packaging in legislation that will govern recreational pot, which Colorado voters approved in November (Kerwin McCrimmon, 5/28). 

Medpage Today: More Kids Exposed To Legal Pot
During 5 years preceding October 2009, when the Justice Department determined that medical marijuana users would no longer be prosecuted, there were no cases of marijuana ingestion among children younger than 12 in a Colorado children's hospital, according to George Sam Wang, MD, of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver, and colleagues. … In 2001, the state of Colorado opened a registry of medical marijuana users, and the total number of individuals enrolled now stands at 89,000. The number of enrollees rose sharply following the policy shift by the federal government, with 60,000 registry identification cards being issued in 2009 alone compared with only 2,000 in the preceding 8 years (Walsh, 5/28).

And in Florida -

Stateline: Aging Baby Boomers Could Help Florida Medical Marijuana Effort
Florida lawmakers made it clear this session that they are not interested in legalizing marijuana. A bill to allow medical marijuana never got a hearing, and the state enacted a new ban on certain smoking pipes to further crack down on illegal marijuana use. But recent polling shows Florida citizens are seeing through the haze. In a survey of 600 likely Florida voters taken earlier this year, 70 percent said they would likely vote to legalize medical marijuana through a constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot. And 58 percent of those voters said they would definitely vote "yes" (Clark, 5/29).