Filed Under: RE-FEAR MONGERING
The New York Times wants to scare the shit out of you. That is exactly what their latest “cannabis poisonings in kids” headline is built to do. Big numbers, scary adjectives, no context. They know fear sells, and they know most people will never dig into what those numbers actually mean.
Here is what they are not telling you.
Most of these so-called “poisonings” are nothing more than exposures. A parent calls poison control, a kid gets checked in at the ER, and someone clicks the THC poisoning box. Symptoms might be a little nausea, a heavy nap, maybe some wobbiness. Thanks to sloppy hospital coding and a system built on billing, those mild cases get lumped in with true emergencies. That is not medicine. That is mismanagement. And it is padding the stats that the New York Times loves to scream about.
From 2017 to 2021, poison control centers recorded 7,043 cannabis exposures in kids under six. In 2021, the peak year, there were 3,054. About 23 percent ended up admitted, many for observation only, and 573 went to critical care. Serious? Yes. But here is the part the Times buries. Cannabis has never killed a child. Not one.
The other truth they skip is that a huge share of these cases have nothing to do with regulated dispensary products. They come from the gas station gray market. Delta 8, Delta 10, THC O. All dressed up in packaging that looks like candy. Calls about these synthetics jumped nearly 80 percent in just two years. Kids under six made up a third of those calls and over half of ICU admissions. Two-thirds happened in the South.
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And while we are here, let us call out the stupid motherfuckers who leave their THC gummies where a toddler can grab them. If you treat 100 milligrams of THC like it is a bag of Skittles, you are the problem. Lock it up. Put it high. Stop pretending this is about the plant when it is really about negligence.
Regulation works. Virginia banned Delta 8 and enforced clear packaging rules in 2023. Pediatric ER visits for cannabis ingestion dropped 21.5 percent by the end of the year. California let things slide, and between 2016 and 2023, calls for cannabis exposures in kids under six jumped 469 percent. Edible cases shot up 971 percent.
The New York Times’ “poisoning” panic is built on three things. Bad parenting. Bad hospital data. Bad journalism. The plant is not the villain here. Stupidity is. Sloppy regulation is. A media machine that would rather keep you scared than keep you informed is.
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