<\/p>\n
Alara Bedka said she began using marijuana at a young age. She hasn’t used it since 2016.<\/p>\n
Lana Bellamy \/ Times Union<\/p>\n
Dr. Vincent Calleo, medical director of the Upstate New York Poison Center, said unintentional cannabis edible exposures among children under six surged from single digits in 2019 to nearly 200 in 2023. He cautioned the numbers likely undercount the real toll.<\/p>\n
Provided by Dr. Vincent Calleo<\/p>\n
Dr. Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai, said adolescent brains have higher concentrations of the receptors where THC binds, making teenagers biologically more vulnerable to its effects than adults.<\/p>\n
Provided by Dr. Yasmin Hurd<\/p>\n
Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said edibles that mimic children\u2019s snacks and 99% THC\u00a0vape waxes are driving psychosis in young people at rates never seen before.<\/p>\n
Provided by Kevin Sabet<\/p>\n
Jonathan Purtle, an associate professor of public health policy at New York University, said comparing today\u2019s cannabis to what previous generations smoked is \u201capples and oranges.\u201d Harm can rise even if the number of users stays flat, he argued, because potency has changed so dramatically.<\/p>\n
Provided by Jonthan Purtle<\/p>\n
Alara Bedka was 15 years old the summer she broke a promise she had made to herself.<\/p>\n
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She had grown up in a home shaped by addiction. She had family members who struggled with alcohol, opioids and pot use.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
But that summer, the promise crumbled. She was hanging out with older kids, trying to fit in, trying to impress boys. Someone passed her a joint. She took a hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it started really more like a social pressure of just wanting to be cool and wanting to fit in,\u201d\u00a0Bedka said. \u201cAnd I cared more about that because I was so kind of broken inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedka\u2019s story is not unusual.<\/p>\n
Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Since New York legalized recreational cannabis in 2021, a combination of high-potency products, regulatory loopholes and the broad normalization of marijuana has created what doctors, researchers, and addiction specialists describe as an escalating crisis among young people.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Cannabis-related emergency department visits in the state have more than doubled since 2016. Poison center calls involving children who accidentally ingested cannabis-infused edibles have surged from single digits to nearly 200 in a single year. And a growing body of research links adolescent cannabis use, particularly of high-potency products, to psychosis, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n Yet the full scale of the harm remains elusive. Experts say the data almost certainly understates the problem, because poison center reporting is voluntary, emergency room visits capture only the most acute cases, and the slow damage that high-potency THC inflicts on developing brains may not surface for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Bedka, what began as a way to belong quickly became something else. She had severe anxiety that she attributes to years of trauma at home. Marijuana made it quiet. For the first time, she felt calm.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just took root like a weed,\u201d she said. \u201cNo pun intended.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Through high school, she managed. She was an overachiever, she said, receiving academic honors and playing sports as she also ascended into leadership positions. She got excellent grades. Nobody suspected anything. In college, the escalation began. She bonded with new friends through marijuana use, then started smoking alone. By her junior year, she was in a relationship that gave her even more access to marijuana around the clock.<\/p>\n \u201cI would schedule my day around the smoking,\u201d she said. \u201cI would be planning and figuring out, like, I got to make sure I have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n In her senior year, Bedka moved off campus. There was no one to stop her. She regularly smoked all night with her friends. When they passed out at 3 am,\u00a0Bedka stayed up to finish her schoolwork until 7 a.m., and then went straight to class. Though it all, she still performed, earning two degress and graduating with summa cum laude honors.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s such a thing as a functional addict,\u201d Bedka said. \u201cSomebody who can still show up and seem like they\u2019re doing OK in life, but inside is absolute turmoil.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n After college, her sister died. Bedka\u2019s marijuana and alcohol use surged. She got involved with friends who had easy access to drugs. She said things got so dark that she wanted to die.<\/p>\n Bedka said she got sober through a 12-step program in September 2016 and that it turned her life around. She said she will celebrate 10 years of recovery this fall.<\/p>\n But when\u00a0Bedka looks at the world today, at the dispensaries on every corner, the vape pens, the edibles shaped like candy, the THC concentrations that would have been unimaginable when she was smoking in college, she feels something between grief and terror.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider the low potency to be like my guardian angel that protected me,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause if I had the type of issues that I had now, in today\u2019s world, I probably would end up dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The cannabis Bedka said she smoked bore little resemblance to what is sold in New York\u00a0today. The consequences are showing up in emergency rooms, poison centers and psychiatrists\u2019 offices across the state.<\/p>\n \u2018Apples and oranges\u2019<\/p>\n In the 1990s, the average THC concentration in marijuana seized by federal authorities hovered around 4%. Today, concentrates sold in vape pens and wax products can reach 99%. Edibles pack hundreds of milligrams of THC into packages designed to look like ordinary candy.<\/p>\n The comparison between generations is meaningless, said Jonathan\u00a0Purtle, an associate professor of public health policy at New York University.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of THC, the strength, the magnitude, is unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d\u00a0Purtle said. To compare today\u2019s products to what previous generations smoked, he added, is \u201capples and oranges.\u201d<\/p>\n Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai, drew a parallel to the opioid crisis: morphine gave way to heroin, which gave way to fentanyl. Each leap in potency brought exponentially greater harm. The same escalation, she said, is happening with cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cThe teenage brain is one of novelty seeking, which is important for our evolution,\u201d\u00a0Hurd said. \u201cThe only difference is today, when they experiment with a drug like THC, it is not a low concentration. It\u2019s a potent drug.\u201d<\/p>\n The biology makes adolescents especially vulnerable. The brain\u2019s\u00a0cannabinoid receptors, the sites where THC binds, are present in higher concentrations in adolescent brains than in adult ones. The prefrontal cortex, which governs judgment and impulse control, does not fully mature until the mid-20s.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cDose matters,\u201d\u00a0Hurd said. \u201cFor all the things that are negative, they\u2019re all about high-dose THC. And those are the main things being sold today.\u201d<\/p>\n Kevin\u00a0Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an organization opposed to marijuana legalization and commercialization, said he is most alarmed by the 99% THC waxes used in vaping devices and by edibles that mimic children\u2019s snacks.<\/p>\n \u201cThey literally look like the same name brands as\u00a0Oreos and Doritos and potato chips and cookies,\u201d Sabet said. \u201cKids don\u2019t have to smoke anymore. They can get the high from these products.\u201d<\/p>\n Loopholes and smoke shops<\/p>\n New York\u2019s path to legal cannabis has been defined by good intentions and unintended consequences.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The state implemented its medical cannabis program in 2016. Two years later, the federal Farm Bill legalized hemp, defined as cannabis containing no more than 0.3% THC by dry weight. New York legalized adult-use cannabis for those 21 and over in 2021.<\/p>\n But the legal market opened slowly, hampered by lawsuits, bureaucratic delays and early limits on enforcement. During that gap, thousands of unlicensed shops sprang up across the state to meet demand. Consumers bought unregulated products from the illicit stores, which flourished in the nearly 18 months it took New York to open the first licensed retail shop in New York City.<\/p>\n A separate loophole compounded the problem. The 2018 Farm Bill classified hemp as legal, and companies began using it to synthetically manufacture products with high levels of THC. Those intoxicating hemp-derived products flooded convenience stores, bodegas and gas stations. In addition, licensed hemp stores also began selling THC-infused products<\/a> that regulators have alleged were unlawful.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the companies have been doing is using hemp and then synthetically manufacturing very high THC products out of it,\u201d said Linda Richter, senior vice president of prevention research and policy at the Partnership to End Addiction. \u201cThat\u2019s what a lot of kids are using.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Last November, federal legislation closed that loophole by shifting to a total THC standard, capping consumer products at 0.4 milligrams of THC per container. But\u00a0the law<\/a> includes a one-year transition period. Full enforcement does not begin until this November.<\/p>\n A 2025 Columbia University secret shopper study<\/a> laid bare the gap: licensed dispensaries checked customer identification 100% of the time; unlicensed shops checked only about 10% of the time.<\/p>\n The Office of Cannabis Management has closed more than 550 illicit shops statewide and now has roughly 600 licensed dispensaries operating.<\/p>\n But\u00a0Sabet said the illicit market remains larger than the legal one.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThe black market actually got stronger because we had no enforcement,\u201d\u00a0Sabet said. \u201cPeople need to realize, if a version of legalization is going to be even remotely effective, you actually have to do a lot of enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n A surge in emergencies<\/p>\n The numbers tell a stark story, even if experts warn they are incomplete.<\/p>\n Cannabis-related\u00a0emergency department visits in New York have more than doubled since 2016, according to state Department of Health data.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In 2024, the number dipped slightly but remained nearly twice the pre-legalization baseline.<\/p>\n At the Upstate New York Poison Center, Dr. Vincent\u00a0Calleo has watched a different crisis unfold among the youngest patients. Unintentional exposures to cannabis edibles among children under 6 rose from single digits in 2019 to nearly 200 cases in 2023.<\/p>\n The number fell to 114 in 2025, but\u00a0Calleo cautioned that the decline may be misleading.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cReporting cases to the poison center isn\u2019t something that everyone has to do,\u201d Calleo said. A recent study he co-authored found that hospital cases outnumbered poison center calls. \u201cThis number might actually underrepresent how many exposures are actually occurring.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Madeline\u00a0Renny, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai, found in a recent study that substance-use-related emergency room visits among adolescents and young adults increased from 2018 to 2023, with cannabis driving much of the surge.<\/p>\n Purtle, the public health policy professor at NYU, said that the available data almost certainly fails to capture the full picture.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rates of use as a measure of success or adverse impact doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d\u00a0Purtle said. The reason, he explained, is simple: \u201cBecause the potency is higher, harm can rise even if prevalence remains flat.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Federal survey data reflects small but meaningful shifts. Among New Yorkers aged 12 to 20, both past-year marijuana use and marijuana use disorder ticked up in recent years, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n Among New York City high school students, current marijuana use <\/a>rose to 13% in 2023, up from 11.7% two years earlier.<\/p>\n Perhaps more troubling, the number of those who tried marijuana before age 13 grew from 4.5% to 5.2% in that same period.<\/p>\n \u2018They\u2019re gummy bears\u2019<\/p>\n In hospital emergency rooms across New York, doctors describe a pattern that barely existed a decade ago.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dr. Molly Boyd-Smith, a medical toxicologist at Albany Medical Center, said cannabis-related visits have surged in the past five years.<\/p>\n \u201cSince COVID, since legalization in the state, the amount of marijuana associated visits I see has absolutely skyrocketed,\u201d Boyd-Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of marijuana hyperemesis syndrome, which is something I had never even heard of in my training.\u201d<\/p>\n Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome occurs in heavy, chronic users. They arrive vomiting uncontrollably, sometimes for days, unable to keep down food or water. The condition can cause dangerous electrolyte imbalances and often requires hospital admission and significant fluid hydration, Renny said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n For teenagers, the most common scenario is acute intoxication from edibles. Unlike smoking, which produces a rapid high, edibles take much longer to take effect.<\/p>\n \u201cThey take one edible thinking it\u2019s going to work quickly, and they don\u2019t feel anything,\u201d\u00a0Calleo said. \u201cSo then they take more, and then all of a sudden they feel all the effects a little bit later, and it hits them pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n These patients arrive with racing hearts, severe anxiety, and confusion.<\/p>\n The most dangerous cases involve young children who find a parent\u2019s edibles. Toddlers can develop altered mental status, seizures, and breathing difficulties. Some require\u00a0intubation or ICU admission.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cA baby will eat this because they\u2019re gummy bears and they\u2019re delicious,\u201d Boyd-Smith said. \u201cThey will come in with altered mental status, difficulty breathing,\u00a0arrhythmias. And unless we can figure out what happened, we\u2019re working the kids up for strokes, for head injuries, for sepsis. And it turns out that mom and dad, very legally, had marijuana edibles, but didn\u2019t realize how dangerous they were.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018It can destroy your life\u2019<\/p>\n Beyond the emergency room, a quieter crisis is building.<\/p>\n