A10
State
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Regulators seek to reduce child pot poisoning
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
SALEM — When it comes
to protecting children from
marijuana exposures, Oregon
regulators are stepping into
relatively new territory.
“The problem is the drug
is in food products that are
attractive and palatable,” said
Dr. George Sam Wang, a phy-
sician and medical toxicologist
at Children’s Hospital Colora-
do.
From gummy bears to
brownies, “no other prescrip-
tion drug comes in all of these
food products,” Wang noted.
Scant research exists on
safe levels for children. Col-
orado and Washington — Or-
egon’s only predecessors in
legalization of recreational
marijuana — have no data col-
lection system to track the total
number of kids who go to the
emergency room with an over-
dose. Oregon regulators have
gleaned a small amount of ev-
idence from voluntary reports
to Colorado poison control on
what levels of THC — the in-
toxicant in pot — are danger-
ous to children.
Oregon, now in the thick
of rulemaking for pot edibles,
may have something to learn
from trailing Colorado on
the road to legalization, said
Dr. Rob Hendrickson, medi-
cal toxicologist and associate
medical director for Oregon
Poison Control.
Hendrickson is embarking
on a study to calculate safe
amounts of THC per kilogram
of a child’s body weight. He
is relying on voluntary reports
of child exposure to come up
with data for the study.
“Right now, there is no way
to screen emergency room
visits so I am going to encour-
age ERs to contact us about
any marijuana exposure, how
much was consumed, how it
was packaged and how did
they get into and come up with
a safe amount,” he said.
The outcome of the study
could help inform decisions on
THC limits when Oregon sets
permanent rules for edibles
next year, including limits on
THC doses and servings per
package. The THC limits ap-
ply only to recreational mari-
juana. Medical marijuana has
no limits on dosage.
The limit is important be-
cause voluntary reports to Col-
orado poison control show that
the number of children, ages
0-5, exposed to THC more
than tripled between 2009
and 2013. There were seven
reports of children exposed to
THC in 2009, the year medical
cannabis was legalized, and 24
reports in 2013 when Colorado
voters approved recreational
use.
Hendrickson plans to mod-
el his study after research on
a pharmaceutical THC drug,
which was used for chemo-
therapy-related nausea well
before medical marijuana was
legalized.
Researchers looked how
much THC a patient could
tolerate and came up with a
number calculated through a
formula based on body sur-
face area. A dosage of more
than 4 mg per square meters
of surface area caused an 86
percent rate of adverse effects,
including sleepiness, paranoia
and fast heart rate, Hendrick-
son said.
“The really disgusting way
to think it is that if you peeled
off someone’s skin and ¿gured
out how much square meters it
took up,” Hendrickson said.
From that, Hendrickson
calculated that a dose of 10 mg
(the limit in Colorado) would
produce symptoms in a 2- to
4-year-old. His study will yield
safe doses for each kilogram of
a child’s weight.
The Oregon Health Au-
thority has approached edible
goods with greater caution
than its predecessors in legal-
ization.
In temporary rules ap-
proved Nov. 13, the health
authority set a limit of 5 mg
of THC per serving of edible
marijuana, half the amount al-
lowed in Colorado and Wash-
ington State. Up to 10 servings
are allowed in one package of
edibles. The temporary rules
take effect April 1.
Hendrickson posits that 10
servings per package pose a
danger to children and wants
the number reduced.
“Think about taking a Her-
shey bar,” Hendrickson said.
“Imagine it has 10 scored rect-
angular sections and one rect-
angle is a serving size. Who in
the world is going to eat one
square of Hershey chocolate?”
Priscilla Lewis, deputy
director for Oregon Public
Health Division, has justi¿ed
that allowance with a require-
ment for resealable, childproof
packaging.
As a medical toxicologist,
Hendrickson has seen that
there is no such thing as a
childproof package.
“The problem is child re-
sistant is designed to delay
children getting into them not
stop them,” Hendrickson said.
“It will take a minute or two
for a child to get into a child
resistant package. It will give
time for mom and dad to turn
around and realize what child
is doing.”
Medford man seeks end
to daylight-saving time
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
Medford resident David
Miles grumbles every year
about having to turn his
clocks forward in the spring
and back again in the fall.
This year, Miles decid-
ed to respond differently by
launching a ballot initiative
Nov. 12 to end daylight-sav-
ing time in Oregon.
“I complain almost every
time there is a time change
and do nothing about it, and
I didn’t want to be that guy
anymore,” he said.
A month later, Miles has
20 volunteers in 15 Oregon
towns and cities who have
gathered nearly 1,000 signa-
tures — a ¿rst step toward
placing an initiative on the
ballot. He said he expects to
hit the 1,000-signature mark
by mid-December.
Once the volunteers pass
that hurdle, they’ll need to
round up a total of 117,578
signatures to send the measure
to voters in November.
The proposal abolishes
daylight-saving in 2018 and
allows voters in individual
counties to opt out through an
election. Miles added that pro-
vision with Malheur County in
mind. That county already fol-
lows Mountain time to be uni-
form with neighboring Idaho.
“The fringe bene¿t is other
counties can decide to stay on
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TIS THE SEASON
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with each day of the
season and burns bright
throughout the
New Year.
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daylight-saving time, through
general county election,” Miles
said.
Changing clocks back and
forth is disruptive to internal
body clocks, sleep patterns and
can even be dangerous, he said.
A 2014 study by University
of Colorado at Boulder found
that fatal traf¿c accidents spike
by 17 percent on the Monday
after clocks spring forward.
Daylight-saving began in
the United States in 1918 to
conserve electricity during the
¿nal days of World War I. It
became a permanent ritual in
1966 with passage of the Uni-
form Time Act. The federal
legislation was designed to end
a confusing patchwork of dif-
ferent time zones in the country
but allowed individual states to
opt out. Arizona, Hawaii and
some U.S. territories have cho-
sen to stay on standard time.
Nowadays, the time change
fails to accomplish the goal of
saving energy, Miles said.
A University of California
Berkeley study found that a
two-month extension of day-
light-saving time in Australia
during the Sydney Olympic
Games in 2000 failed to curtail
electricity demand.
Earlier this year, there were
proposals in several states to
end time changes by either re-
maining on daylight saving or
adhering to standard time year-
round, according to the Wash-
ington Post.
Oregon Sen. Kim Thatch-
er, R-Keizer, introduced a bill
in January that would have
let voters to decide whether
to abolish daylight saving in
2021.
Dozens of Oregonians tes-
ti¿ed in favor of the proposal.
Joanne DeWitt, one of those
who submitted testimony, said
daylight saving causes hazards
while serving no purpose.
“I would like to see it go
the way of other old dino-
saurs,” DeWitt said.
The legislation stalled in
the Senate Rules Committee.
Some lawmakers were con-
cerned about being out of sync
with Washington and Califor-
nia, according to Thatcher’s
of¿ce.
“I think once one state does
it, the others will follow, and
honestly, it isn’t that big of a
deal,” Miles said “I have never
heard people in Arizona say, ‘I
hate being off time with Utah.’
They always laugh at the rest
of the country at daylight-sav-
ing time.”
Albany resident Carrie Da-
vis, one of the volunteer pe-
titioners, said she has always
hated daylight-saving time.
Her opposition compounded
when she had children.
“Now that I have kids, it is
apparent to me when we try to
change our daily schedule even
by an hour, it is so impactful to
our whole success through the
day,” Davis said. “Trying to
get a toddler to go to sleep an
hour later or an hour earlier is
just challenging, for a super¿-
cial social agreement we don’t
need.”
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