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“It’s a problem, but it’s not an epidemic.”

Lang said those figures probably reflect an increased use of cannabis and increasingly potent strains.

He noted people aren’t dying from cannabis use, compared to hundreds of fatalities a year from fentanyl and still more from other opioids and even legal pharmaceuticals.

But he said one consequence of regular, long-term marijuana use that’s troubling and becoming more common is cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, in which the drug triggers uncontrollable vomiting.

Such patients can remain in hospital for a few days, said Eddy.

“Cannabis has been a very good anti-nausea medication for a long time, but somehow there’s a flip that’s switched that leads to uncontrollable vomiting,” he said.

“We’re seeing more and more of those and we’ll see more and more with legalization.”

Some medical experts, like the AHS’s Chris Wilkes, are voicing concern about cannabis legalization and what they consider a cavalier attitude toward the drug.

They say marijuana use can have particularly adverse effects on youths’ developing brains until their mid-20s.

“If you’re a young adult, your brain is still developing and cannabis impacts memory, attention skills, control of your impulses, prioritizing and problem solving,” Wilkes, AHS’s head of child and adolescent psychiatry, told Postmedia last month.

Following recreational cannabis legalization in Colorado in 2014, there was an increase in emergency room visits related to the drug, said Lang.

But he said that was fleeting and might be something Canada could expect to see once the drug is legalized, presumably later this year.

“There was an increase for the first six months but then it went back to normal,” he said.

“It was a brand new thing.”

The minimum age for marijuana consumption in Alberta will be 18, and prohibited in areas frequented by children.

In Calgary, public use of the drug will be banned.

Wilkes estimates 37 per cent of Grade 12 students in Alberta have smoked pot while 10 per cent are thought to be using it regularly.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn