Inadvertent ingestion of marijuana - Los Angeles, California, 2009.
On April 8, 2009, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) notified officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) in California about a group of preschool teachers with nausea, dizziness, headache, and numbness and tingling of fingertips after consumption of brownies purchased 3 days before from a sidewalk vendor. To characterize the neurologic symptoms and determine whether these symptoms were associated with ingestion of the brownies, the police and health departments launched a collaborative investigation. This report summarizes the results of that investigation, which detected cannabinoids in a recovered sample of the brownies. Two patients sought medical attention, and one patient's urine and serum tested positive for 11-nor-9-carboxy-delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-COOH), a marijuana metabolite. The findings in this report demonstrate the utility of a collaborative investigation by public health and law enforcement.The findings also underscore the need to consider marijuana as a potential contaminant during foodborne illness investigations and the importance of identifying drug metabolites by testing of clinical specimens soon after symptom onset.
D000328:Adult; D002188:Cannabis / Q000506:poisoning*; D013759:Dronabinol / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005506:Food Contamination; D006801:Humans; D015141:Los Angeles; D008297:Male; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000139:chemically induced; D011041:Poisoning / Q000175:diagnosis; D055815:Young Adult
C016780:11-nor-delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid; D013759:Dronabinol