An employee weighs portions of retail marijuana to be packaged and sold at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, Dec. 31, 2013. (Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)
(Reuters) – The number of children treated annually for accidental pot consumption in Colorado has reached double-digits and a drug treatment chain has seen a surge of teens treated for cannabis abuse, a leading U.S. anti-marijuana group said on Monday.
In a report, marijuana legalization foe Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) also pointed to higher-than-average use in the first states to sanction recreational cannabis, Colorado and Washington state, and an increase in burns from butane hash oil production.
“We need a pumping-of-the-brakes on the marijuana industry,” SAM’s president, Kevin Sabet, said in an interview. “When we have hospitalizations and burns and deaths, we need to stop many of these products from being sold.”
The report comes amid rapidly shifting state laws governing marijuana use. Voters in four U.S. states opted to legalize its recreational use, most recently in Oregon and Alaska. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.