Winstock Adam, Lynskey Michael, Borschmann Rohan, Waldron Jon
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
J Psychopharmacol. 2015 Jun;29(6):698-703. doi: 10.1177/0269881115574493. Epub 2015 Mar 10.
Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) have become increasingly popular in recent years. Diverse in chemical structure, many have been subjected to legislative regulation, but their availability and use persists. Often marketed to reflect their similar effects to cannabis, their use has been associated with a range of negative health effects. We sought to determine the relative risk of seeking emergency medical treatment (EMT) following use of SCs and natural cannabis.
We utilized an anonymous online survey of drug use, obtaining data from 22,289 respondents. We calculated the relative risk of seeking EMT between the two substances using an estimate for days used in the past year.
Thirty-seven cannabis users (0.2%) and 21 SC users (1.0%) had sought EMT during the past year following use. The relative risk associated with the use of SCs was 30 (95% CI 17.5-51.2) times higher than that associated with cannabis. Significantly more symptoms (p=0.03) were reported by respondents seeking treatment for SCs than for cannabis.
Whilst these findings must be treated with caution, SCs potentially pose a greater risk to users' health than natural forms of cannabis. Regulation is unlikely to remove SCs from the market, so well-informed user-focused health promotion messages need to be crafted to discourage their use.
合成大麻素（SCs）近年来越来越受欢迎。其化学结构多样，许多已受到立法监管，但其可得性和使用情况仍持续存在。它们常被营销以显示其与大麻有相似效果，其使用与一系列负面健康影响相关。我们试图确定使用合成大麻素和天然大麻后寻求紧急医疗救治（EMT）的相对风险。
我们利用一项关于药物使用的匿名在线调查，从22289名受访者处获取数据。我们使用过去一年使用天数的估计值来计算两种物质之间寻求紧急医疗救治的相对风险。
在过去一年使用后，37名大麻使用者（0.2%）和21名合成大麻素使用者（1.0%）寻求了紧急医疗救治。与使用合成大麻素相关的相对风险比与大麻相关的相对风险高30倍（95%置信区间17.5 - 51.2）。寻求合成大麻素治疗的受访者报告的症状明显更多（p = 0.03）。
虽然这些发现必须谨慎对待，但合成大麻素对使用者健康的潜在风险可能比天然形式的大麻更大。监管不太可能将合成大麻素从市场上清除，因此需要精心制定以用户为中心的、信息充分的健康促进信息，以劝阻人们使用它们。
