Yea, that probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world. But it also probably didn't do anything. You just thought your pet was high because you were high. “LOLOL LOOK, HE'S EATING FOOD. He must have the munchies.”
But now, dogs and cats are getting sick from another manner of ingesting pot. Eating it. From NBC News:
While dogs can, and do, eat plant material, including marijuana leaves, serious poisonings more often result from edibles prepared by owners for their own use.
Marijuana butter is especially dangerous. “People put weed and a stick of butter in a sauce pan and the fat soluble cannabinoids leech into the butter creating a much higher concentration of THC,” [Dr. Tina Wismer, director of the Animal Poison Control Center] explained.
Users then make brownies or cookies with the butter, and dogs, being dogs, and loving brownies and cookies, may scarf them down when a pet owner isn’t looking.
And you know, chocolate ain't good for your dogs, either. But, corresponding with the rise of legal and medicinal marijuana is a rise in emergency room visits for pets from pot overdoses.
Calls reporting pet poisonings by marijuana have increased by about 30 percent since 2009, from 213 calls that year to 320 in 2013, according to the Animal Poison Control Center, a division of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Remember when you were in high school and you blew smoke in your dogs ear?
In Colorado, were weed is legal, vets suspect some marijuana ingestion may be intentional.
Dr. Matt Booth said his veterinary emergency center sees about a case a month. The episodes are usually accidental, he said, but even if some were deliberate, “and some ding-a-ling gave his dog marijuana, they wouldn’t tell me that” because of local animal cruelty laws.
And while it may seem funny, it can be seriously bad for your pets (and it's only funny because you are high):
Animals don’t react the same way as humans,” explained Wismer. “They may become sedated, act drunk and wobbly, but about 25 percent go the other way. They become agitated, have high heart rates, they’re in distress. Most dogs become incontinent. They stagger around dribbling urine everywhere.”
Blood pressure can soar. Without treatment, dogs can go into comas and die.
So, please be more vigilant with your marijuana brownies. And never, never intentionally do this. Please.
[Stoner via Shutterstock]
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