Seriously, What Are They Smoking?

By Darryl Mason

Who knows, maybe soon there will be a new pharmaceutical to treat this fresh, mostly unexplained and extremely dodgy sounding "syndrome" :

There is mounting evidence to support the existence of a new syndrome afflicting heavy cannabis users, after the world's first cases were found in South Australia.

Of course.

The condition "cannabinoid hyperemesis" was first identified in a group of about 20 heavy drug users in the Adelaide hills in 2004, and a new case has emerged this time in the US.

The syndrome is characterised by nausea, stomach pain and bouts of vomiting - ill effects which, oddly, sufferers say they get some relief from by having a hot shower or bath.

"Cannabinoid hyperemesis" is a terribly shit name for anything. If they want this new "syndrome" to seize the public imagination, and make those who use cannabis for medicinal purposes shift back to pharmaceuticals from paranoid fear that the next long slow sweet numbing inhale, or next crunchy bite of a delicious cannabis-rich Anzac biscuit, might turn them into people from the hills outside Adelaide, then they've got to come up with a truly catchy name.

ShowerHolic Screaming Dope Disease (SHSDD)

Toxic Pot Shower Shock Syndrome (TPSS)

Adelaide Hills Mindfuck Freakout Disorder (AHMF)

Something like that. But better.

In the US case, the sufferer had been smoking marijuana daily and in heavy doses for six years. This eventually led to bouts of vomiting lasting two to three hours daily, and this was worse after meals.

As with South Australian cases, the young man initially turned to "compulsive hot bathing behaviour" to relieve the symptoms but he was not cured until he gave up smoking cannabis altogether.

The cure is a simple one. Stop smoking so much fucking pot if it's fucking with your head and driving you to act like an insane vomiting death-wish crazed lobster.

Adelaide-based drug expert and emergency ward doctor, Dr David Caldicott, said he had seen three cases of the illness and it was possibly also under-reported by sufferers.

Possibly under-reported? There's only four known cases of it mentioned in medical literature, after widespread cannabis usage across the Middle East, China, Mexico, North America, for thousands of years. For twice the length of Christianity, cannabis has been used, and abused, and yet nobody has ever written, or reported, the symptoms of this new "syndrome" before. Unless the consumption of bong or bucket water is involved.

"We're probably seeing the tip of the iceberg in the emergency departments, it's probably far more common but far milder (in the broader community)," he said.

Little was known about how cumulative cannabis use could lead to vomiting...

Cannabis poisoned by toxic chemicals in grow rooms pushed to maximum output? Too much tobacco in the mix? Unchanged bong water that resembles watery peat moss?

Cannabis is used by hundreds of thousands of Australians, and hundreds of millions of people around the world. Daily. Where are the deaths? AIDS and cancer patients use cannabis to stop nausea, to fight the urge to vomit and to calm stomach complaints. These three benefits from absorbing cannabis are amongst the most frequently cited reasons why so many American medicinal cannabis users moved away from gut-burning pharmaceuticals to one of the world's most common weeds. It stops you feeling like you're going to vomit everything inside not nailed down.

That this new excitedly, hopefully, promoted cannabis-related "syndrome" is manifesting in heavy users the exact opposite of the well known, medically recognised, very real benefits of cannabis is utterly bizarre. And likely not true. At least in the 'syndrome" being linked to cannabis. Toxic doses of THC are all but impossible to ingest, short of drinking a wine barrel of hash oil without stopping for a nine cheeses pizza.

Whatever is going on, "cannabinoid hyperemesis" sounds downright nasty :

"Grown men, screaming in pain, sweating profusely, vomiting every 30 seconds and demanding to be allowed to use the shower. It's a very dramatic presentation."

Unfortunately it's not on YouTube.

The Daily Telegraph, and the evening tabloid TV shows, must be greatly anticipating an explosion in Crazy Sweating Screaming Projectile Vomiting Toxic Pot Syndrome (CSSPVTPS). None of them have been hooking hard into Australia's most popular natural, curiously illegal, drug recently, probably because so many of their reporters, writers and producers are themselves infrequent users of cannabis, and other drugs, and are secretly wanting to do positive, non-attack stories on pot smoking in nursing homes and terminal illness wards, and know the drug is the least dangerous, and least domestically destructive, of all those consumed recreationally by Australians.

Then again, perhaps this new, mega-cannabis consuming "syndrome" is real, dangerous and spreading.

If so, the cannabis consumed by those suffering twice a minute vomiting might turn out to be spiked with something toxic, and hallucinatory. Cannabis dosed with enough DMT would make anybody (particularly someone who didn't know they were about to get higher than God) vomit like a gushing tap, sweat profusely and demand immediate communion with healing, calming water.

If these alleged syndrome sufferers are also having mind-electrifying religious visions, then DMT spiking is likely the cause.

But still....

Smoking vast quantities of Adelaide hydro every day for endless years, probably punched from festy buckets, would turn even Tommy Chong into a gibbering freak convinced that only by immediate immersion in hot water can he stop from involuntarily puking out his lower intestine.

News.com.au : Cannabis Users 'Suffering New Syndrome'

Teenagers All Fked Up On Drugs & Booze....Well, A Few Are