The Upstate New York Poison Center took more than 50,000 calls from New Yorkers from Buffalo to the Hudson Valley last year, with questions about potential poisonings. There are a couple of areas officials are keeping a close eye on.
Most of the calls come from homes, with more than half involving children. They are getting into familiar items, like pain medications, prescription drugs, or household cleaning products. Center Director Michelle Caliva said staffers do a good job of keeping these individuals home. One area where children are more likely to end up in the hospital: exposure to cannabis-related items.
"I think people know to keep their medication out of reach," Caliva said. "We just want the cannabis to be in the same mindset as the medication."
There were 540 cannabis related exposures reported last year, about two-thirds of them involving kids under five, most of them getting into edibles. Caliva said children can become very sick after exposure.
"They can be sleepy, they can have hallucinations, they can be paranoid," Caliva said. "We have had some kids that have had seizures, some kids whose respiratory rate drops, and they've needed to be supported in the hospital. These are kids that can't stay home. They have to go to a hospital."
Caliva urges caregivers to keep cannabis products up and away or in a lockbox. Another statistic the Center is watching closely: the number of intentional poisonings. Caliva said 13% of total case volume is related to suicide or self-harm, a number that remains alarmingly steady. Poison Control experts are available by phone 24/7 to respond to emergencies across 54 counties in upstate New York.
