United States | O beautiful for spacious highs

Cannabis and anaesthesia do not mix

As more Americans get high, medical drawbacks of marijuana come to the fore

PETROLIA, CALIFORNIA - August 3, 2022: The morning fog leaves a layer of dew on cannabis farmer Drew Barbers cannabis rows in Petrolia, California August 3, 2022. Barber practices regenerative farming and is sun and earth certified. He has 10,000 square foot full-season outdoor varieties of cannabis in Humboldt, County.Humboldt is a part of the Emerald Triangle, a region made up of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties. The Emerald Triangle is one the historically largest cannabis-producing regions in the United States. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images) — Image: Getty Images

Mar 9th 2023|WASHINGTON, DC

Waking up in the middle of a surgery is the stuff of nightmares. Your eyes squint open as a surgeon digs her scalpel into your abdomen. The operating team becomes frantic; an anaesthesiologist rushes to administer a stronger dose. Though some such horror stories have made headlines, thanks to modern medicine that kind of situation is exceedingly rare. But the risk of it happening may be rising and anaesthesiologists are taking note. The culprit is not an invasion of evil doctors or a bad batch of drugs, but the rise in Americans’ casual use of a substance that many think is harmless: marijuana.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “O beautiful for spacious highs”