Following recent reports about children accidentally consuming cannabis edibles and ending up in a hospital, Republican assemblyman Kevin J. Rooney of New Jersey is once again calling for safer cannabis storage in homes.
“After reading reports and hearing anecdotal evidence of increased cases of children and teenagers being rushed to hospitals and contacting poison control centers due to ingesting edible cannabis products, I cannot stress the importance of this bill enough,” Rooney stated. “If adults choose to purchase legally distributed cannabis products, that is their prerogative under the new state law, but they must be held accountable to prevent these products from getting into the hands of children who could unknowingly consume unsafe amounts and cause health issues.”
In June, Rooney introduced a bill that demands marijuana products be stored in a locked container. The measure establishes civil penalties to be enforced for violations, but doesn’t offer precise guidelines for enforcement,
What About Alcohol, Cigarettes And Prescription Drugs?
There's nothing in the bill that requires other controlled substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription drugs to be secured, the New Jersey Globe reported.
Families in New Jersey are rather familiar with using and storing alcohol and prescription drugs, while marijuana legalization is recent, and they may not know how to properly store it to be safe for everyone around, Rooney explained.
“Since it is new, and since it is coming in the form of gummies and brownies and cookies and things along those lines, we’re not seeing parents being responsible enough at this point to lock up those dangerous substances,” he told the New Jersey Globe.
According to Rooney, more comprehensive legislation that would include alcohol and other substance “would go nowhere,” as he keeps high hopes for a more narrow marijuana bill to be getting the necessary political support.
Gun Restrictions
When the legislature discussed cannabis law, there were also debates on new gun restrictions, including one that contasts with Rooney’s cannabis storage bill — the Safe Storage of Firearms Act. Under this bill, firearms would have to be unloaded and stored in locked containers.
Rooney, however, voted against the bill last year.
“In the Constitution, it speaks in the Second Amendment about the right to bear arms,” Rooney said. “I’ve read the Constitution many times, and there’s nothing in there about the legalization of marijuana.”
Children Cannabis Poisonings On The Rise All-Around
Rooney's bill was presented after an incident involving two Bergen County nine-year-old children, who ate their parent’s cannabis-infused brownies that were left on a kitchen counter and ended up in the hospital, according to Insider NJ.
More recently, reports of children being poisoned by marijuana edibles — specially designed to resemble candy — are on the rise.
Fox News reported kids younger than five years old are ending up in emergency rooms.
“The majority of times the parents might not even realize it until the child is not waking up, or the child is walking funny,” New Jersey Poison Control managing director Bruce Ruck warned.
Because copycat marijuana edibles are starting to be a public concern, a bipartisan coalition of 23 state attorneys general recently sent a letter to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford demanding action to prevent the sale of packaged marijuana products that resemble popular food brands.
Also, the issue isn't exclusive to U.S.
According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the number of children hospitalized for marijuana poisoning notably rose in several Canadian provinces after they had legalized edibles.
Photo: Benzinga Edit; Sources: Elsa Olofsson and Jeremiah Lawrence via Unsplash & Matthewpconlon via Wikimedia Commons
