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If that cousin acting up, you know why

• A new study documented a sharp rise in emergency-room visits linked with marijuana following legalization in Colorado.
• One of the key drivers of the ER visits was a mysterious syndrome characterized by severe nausea and repeated vomiting.
• Little is known about the condition, called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS.
• The only known way to cure CHS is to stop using marijuana. Researchers still aren’t sure what causes it.

When she became so uncontrollably sick that she resorted to scalding her skin in a hot bath for the third time in a row, Mrs. X began to wonder whether it had something to do with smoking marijuana.

For nearly a decade, the Australian woman had experienced sudden and severe episodes of nausea and vomiting in connection with using the drug. Before that, she’d smoked safely for years, with no symptoms.

In 2004, a team of emergency-room physicians in Australia detailed her experience anonymously alongside a handful of similar cases in the same region that year. In nearly all those cases, the people described an illness that cropped up suddenly, often after decades of normal marijuana use. Piping hot baths were their only relief.

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