Ahead of 4/20 day, Renee Schmid, DVM, DABT, DABVT, sat down with dvm360 to discuss the clinical signs that pets exposed to cannabis or THC will present with in the clinic, how to treat these patients, and if any secondary concerns are needed if the pet ingested an edible or gummy form of cannabis, such as xyitol or chocolate. As marijuana continues to rise on the list of top yearly toxins at Pet Poison Helpline, recognizing these signs can be crucial, especially if the clients do not want to admit what their pets got into.

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity.

Renee Schmid, DVM, DABT, DABVT: For cannabis or THC exposures, the biggest things to look at are really clinical signs. There aren’t necessarily a lot of diagnostics that are going to be helpful. We’re not really a big fan of the urine drug screening either, because those are validated on human urine. And so there’s different metabolites. The body breaks it down a little bit differently in humans versus animals. And so a lot of times, if you do a urine drug screen on an animal, you may get a false negative or you may get a false positive. So I really encourage veterinarians to treat based on their clinical signs. And so a lot of the common clinical signs are that kind of lethargy or sluggishness, maybe some ataxia and weakness. They can also have bradycardia. We can see hypotension and hypothermia developing. A very kind of tell-all sign is when they’re dribbling urine and so often, if that patient walks in the door and they look a little bit out of it, and they’re dribbling urine, but the owner isn’t really wanting to say what they got into, or admit to anything, it’s probably THC, so probably would want to be treating it in that way.

Yeah, so for THC and other cannabis products, typically, we want to do a lot of great nursing care, symptomatic and supportive care. So if it’s caught early enough, we might be able to induce vomiting and give one dose of activated charcoal, sorbitol. Otherwise, IV fluids might be necessary. Maybe sub q fluids, if they’re mildly affected. The really mildly affected cases, might be able to just be monitored at home. I always like to have them be examined by a veterinarian first to help make that determination, because pet owners are not going to be able to tell if they’re hypotensive or hypothermic, or, you know, if they’re what their heart rate necessarily might be and what their kind of pulse quality is like. So I always like to have an examination there at the veterinary clinic first, and then treating as necessary. If they need some warming, that measure is done because they’re hypothermic, if they need anything to help with any potential bradycardia or hypotension, done with them. Fortunately, most cases usually resolve within around 12 to 24 hours. Some might linger for 48 or a little bit longer, depending on how affected they are