Children and pets accidentally ingesting marijuana have been on the rise since Ohio recreational marijuana sales started nearly a year ago.
The Central Ohio Poison Center reported 582 marijuana exposures to children under six in 2024 — compared to 79 in 2019 and 11 back in 2015, said Natalie Rine, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center, which covers 64 of Ohio’s 88 counties and receives more than 42,000 poison exposure calls annually.
“There’s been a pretty significant increase in exposures in that age group since legalization,” she said. “It’s odd for us to go a day without having a call about a kid getting into one of these products. … As access to something increases, it’s not surprising that the exposures increase with it.”
Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57% of the vote, and sales started in August 2024. Ohio medical marijuana sales started in 2019.
Children
Children who have ingested marijuana tend to be drowsy, sleepy, confused and, in some cases, have trouble breathing, Rine said. It can take hours after a child has consumed marijuana until the symptoms appear.
“These kids can have seizures sometimes as well,” she said. “… We don’t really have an antidote or anything that we can really reach for. A lot of the care that they’re going to receive when they go to the hospital is going to be direct monitoring.”
Although it’s not common, there have been times — depending on the amount of marijuana ingested — where doctors have to put a child on a ventilator for a day or two until the drug gets out of their system, Rine said.
She recommends parents keep their marijuana products out of sight and out of reach in lock boxes.
“We don’t recommend using them in front of children because children like to mimic what their parents do,” she said. “Don’t store these products where they can be confused with other snacks.”
It’s not just the youngest children who have seen an uptick in marijuana exposures. Children ages 6-12 had 192 marijuana exposures and teenagers 13-19 had 254 in 2024, according to the Central Ohio Poison Center. In 2019, there were 20 exposures to children 6-12 years old and 119 to teenagers 13-19.
Pets
Marijuana is listed as ninth most common toxin for pets in Ohio, according to Pet Poison Helpline.
Dr. Edward Cooper, professor of small animal emergency at Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, said he has seen a bit of an increase of pets accidentally ingesting marijuana after recreational sales started last summer, but was expecting more of an uptick.
“In fairness, part of it may be we’re college campus adjacent, so we’ve always had a, we’ll say, a decent measure of patients presenting with suspected or confirmed THC or marijuana exposure,” he said.
Sometimes pet owners would be a bit hesitant to admit their pet ingested marijuana before it was legal in Ohio, Cooper said.
“We’d have to do a little bit of sleuthing … versus people being a little bit more forthcoming,” he said.
Pets that have ingested marijuana tend to wobble on their feet, stumble when they walk, dribble urine, have smaller than normal pupils, be sleepy and quiet, but tend to overreact when stimulated, Cooper said.
Pet owners should seek veterinary care if their pet has ingested a significant amount of marijuana or THC products, Cooper said.
“If smaller dogs get exposed to some of the higher concentration THC containing products then it can be a medical emergency,” he said. “They can progress to loss of consciousness. It can affect their breathing, and that’s something that we definitely would need to intervene on.”
There are medications that can bind up the THC in their blood, Cooper said.
He said it’s more of a gray area if the pet has ingested a mild to moderate amount of THC, but “erring on the side of caution (and) seeking some veterinary care … would be a very reasonable thing to do.”
This story was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished here with permission.
This article appears in Jul 9-22, 2025.