Vaping cannabis or synthetic cannabinoids such as prohibited substances PTC (“fart your skull”) or Buddha Blue, popular with adolescents and on social networks, runs “serious health risks”, alert this Thursday 6 February the drug agency.
Psychiatric disorders – hallucinations, suicidal ideas, panic attacks -, but also digestive (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain), cardiovascular (tachycardia, chest pain), kidney problems, severe addiction with weaning syndrome or discomfort, amnesias, losses of Knowledge, convulsions … The list of “serious undesirable effects” caused by the consumption of these psychoactive substances is long.
Far from reducing the risks linked to the use of these illicit products, vaping – or electronic cigarette – “can on the contrary increase them, the action of products being faster,” said the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and health products (ANSM) in an opinion Posted Thursday. “We see the persistent promotion on social networks of dangerous practices, and we would like to call for vigilance all audiences, but particularly the youngest,” AFP said Agnès Laforest-Bruneaux, deputy director of the supervisory management of the ANSM.
Adolescents inhale e-liquids, “obtained on the internet, in the street or in high school, from comrades” such as PTC (“fart your skull”), or Buddha Blue, “very concentrated products”, She. And some “do not feel well, have tachycardia, hallucinations, lose the link with reality … will go to the emergency room”. “These vapoted substances, cannabinoids, are narcotics: they are prohibited and have serious risks for health, while this consumption mode can be perceived as less risky,” said Agnès Laforest-Bruneaux.
The PTC can indeed contain “several synthetic cannabinoids, substances that imitate the effect of cannabis but whose power can be superior”, indicates the ANSM, whose monitoring, started in 2019 – enriched with info service data data and cases reported to the anti-poison centers-brought in France on 215 cases (including a death) in 2021-2022 and 139 in 2023-2024. “It is not exhaustive, but it makes it possible to give a trend, to identify new substances that appear,” said the ANSM official.
Addiction of addiction among the youngest
“At the end of 2024, we reached very close reports, serious adverse effects in high school students, who required fairly long hospitalizations and, out of 2023-2024, half of the cases declared to us are serious cases, which Half concerns minors, “she explains. Even more worrying, “in the medium and long term”, for “chronic users”, there is an “addiction and an important dependence, in strong progression, with symptoms of lack, especially among the youngest consumers”, specifies Agnès Laforest-Bruneaux.
The ANSM invites electronic cigarette users to vigilance when they get e-liquids likely to contain synthetic cannabinoids with variable compositions and dosages. It also urges not to make “house” mixtures of products which “increase the risks of poisoning that can lead to hospitalizations”.
In the event of poisoning linked to vaping, manifesting itself by “nausea and vomiting, discomfort, amnesia, convulsion, loss of knowledge, delusional episode” or “hallucinations or suicidal ideas”, the agency calls to contact the SAMU (15), firefighters (18) or emergency services. It recalls that in the event of dependence on vaping products – excluding nicotine-, “young consumer consultations” offer at under 25, a free and confidential service of reception, listening and advice. The site Drugs-info-service.fr provides information to find suitable care, by a doctor or a specialized structure.
For emergency workers, the ANSM recalls that detecting synthetic cannabinoids “is complex and requires specific analyzes carried out by specialized laboratories”.