Tina B – January 14, 2023

I’m so mad and sad how high-potency THC products have damaged our 23 year old son. As with many others, our son was a top student, super smart, athletic, kind and loving, many friends and had everything going for him. While in college he began vaping Delta8, legally purchased at smoke shops and some gas stations, and online. Marketed as safe and a milder high than regular weed. We didn’t know he was using it, there is no odor and he mostly smoked it at night. After a few months of smoking Delta8 cartridges, he suddenly snapped and went psychotic. I was so confused. It was like my sweet, intelligent wonderful son had suddenly gone insane. I thought perhaps he had used heroine or LSD or magic mushrooms. He was completely delusional, hallucinating and saying things that made no sense. He thought  his group of friends were evil and all out to get him. He was telling stories of things he said had just happened that weren’t real. He said he was now a Buddhist and knew all the answers of the universe. Many other bizarre things  I searched his car and found 5 packages (now empty) of Delta8 vapes, which I had never heard of. My Google search only turned up ads for Delta8 and things saying it was safe and harmless. Then when I “Googled Delta8 bad effects,”  that’s when I found hundreds of stories about people going into psychosis, becoming suicidal, schizophrenic, violent, etcetera. It is very addictive and the more you smoke the more you need. Now we knew what our son was on, and he was becoming increasingly more agitated and psychotic, so fearing for his safety and our own we took him to the ER, telling him we had to have some tests running him to check his health . He was very confused so he went willingly to the hospital with us, although tried to run out while we were there and was detained by security guards. It was pretty clear to see he was out of his mind. They admitted him at the ER and ran all the blood and urine tests. ONLY THC in his system, no other drugs. My daughter and I stayed with him in the ER. His psychosis became worse and worse as the night went on. He was shouting out crazy things. Withdrawals started so he was sweating and shaking and writhing in the bed and begging the doctors and nurses for Delta8 vapes. Then at one point he went catatonic and was sat on the edge of the bed just gone. He couldn’t hear us or see us. They Baker-acted him and took him by ambulance to a psychiatric hospital. While in the waiting room at the psychiatric hospital he looked me, his mother, straight in the eyes and said “Who are you again?”  He really didn’t know. They kept him a few days in the psych hospital where he had time to start to detox and was given anti-psychotic meds. Every few minutes he would call me or his dad from the hospital and say “Did I die?  Am i dead?”  Over and over again.  He was coming out of psychosis but still so confused. We were able to find an intensive outpatient drug treatment center so the hospital agreed to release him to us after confirming he would begin treatment the following day.  He went to IOP sessions for almost five months, as well as seeing psychiatrists and another mental health counselor.  The treatment center drug tested him regularly and so did I, to keep him accountable. For the first 5 months he was still not himself at all, did not want to talk much to any of us in his family, just still did not have much of his old personality back at all. The counselors and doctors all told him he needed to stay away from his old friends who he used to smoke with, so that was difficult.  He did eventually try some activities with Meetup.com groups which we encouraged. Now it has been about 8 months and he seems to be about 90% back to himself for which I’m very grateful, although I wonder if there is some permanent brain damage. There are so many more hundreds of horrific details I’ve left out from this whole experience of what our son has been through and what our family has endured due to the THC poisoning and its effects. I’m so angry that this harmful toxic product is sold legally. In researching I found reports about lab tests showing that it contains products such as floor cleaners! It is completely unregulated, so anybody could set up a makeshift factory in a warehouse or in a home and put some chemicals in a vape cartridge, label it Delta8 or whatever, and sell it in vape shops! Your kids could be vaping bleach or acid or who knows what! Everyone needs to be made aware of how many thousands of people are being harmed by this.