A recent study in the American Journal of Psychiatry compared marijuana vs. alcohol in emergency care. It looked at individuals aged 16 to 64 with a substance-related acute care encounter between 2016 and 2023. Overall, 40.4% had an encounter involving marijuana and 53.2% had one involving alcohol. Acute care encounters included emergency department visits, hospitalizations and ambulance transports.

Among 16- to 18-year-olds, 83.7% had a marijuana-related encounter, while 33.0% had an alcohol-related encounter. In the marijuana vs. alcohol comparison, older adults reversed the pattern. Among 55- to 64-year-olds, 18.8% involved marijuana, while 70.4% involved alcohol.

Young adults ages 19 to 24 saw the fastest growth in marijuana’s share, about 1.8 percentage points per year, according to WashU Medicine. Nearly half of marijuana-related encounters also involved at least one other substance.

The authors, based at Washington University in St. Louis, concluded that “cannabis has assumed an increasingly prominent role in substance-related acute care among adolescents and young adults, while alcohol remains predominant among older adults.”

The marijuana findings echo CDC data showing nearly 200,000 ER visits for cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, with the highest rates among 15- to 24-year-olds. In Massachusetts, marijuana ER visits among children 6 to 12 rose more than sevenfold after retail sales began.

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