The number of children under 12 who have ingested edibles at home jumped from 132 in 2016 to more than 3,000 in 2020. The CDC reports that, between 2017 and 2021, there were more than 7,000 cases of children ingesting edibles, of which 22.7 percent needed to be hospitalized. In the first three months of 2024, Poison Centers have managed 2,386 cannabis edible exposure cases in patients that were 0-19 years of age.
In 2017, Washington state tracked 82 poisonings with marijuana for children age 0-5. (Washington Poison Center, 2017 Annual Toxic Trend Report: Cannabis). The Liquor and Cannabis Board passed a rule to ban edibles. The industry objected and the Board reneged.
Two babies appear to have died directly from THC. One was an 11-month-old baby boy, who died in Colorado in 2015. He had high levels of THC in his blood (WDTN News, Colorado Doctors Say 11-Month-Old Died From Marijuana Overdose, November 16, 2017.) An 11-day-old Illinois baby died of cannabis toxicity to liver and the adrenals. The mother was using while pregnant. This was reported in 2019 (NIH, Neonate Death Due to Marijuana Toxicity to the Liver and Adrenals, December 15, 2019).
A 4-year-old child in VA died from ingesting a toxic amount of his mother’s THC gummies.