Nearly 200,000 ER Visits Involved Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified 199,565 emergency department visits involving cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS, between January 2023 and May 2026.

The analysis, published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on August 6, 2026, drew on the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program.

What Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome Is

CHS produces cycles of severe nausea, repeated vomiting and abdominal pain in people who use cannabis regularly. It was first described in Australia about two decades ago and remains widely underrecognized.

Patients often find that hot showers briefly relieve the symptoms, which is one of the clues distinguishing CHS from other gastrointestinal conditions.

Standard anti-nausea medications frequently do not work on it, which is part of why these visits so often end in an emergency department rather than a clinic.

Repeated episodes carry real medical consequences, including dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, kidney injury and dental erosion.

The one intervention that reliably resolves it is stopping cannabis use, which is what makes this a treatment question rather than only a gastroenterology question.

How Often It Sends People to the Emergency Room

The rate is the more useful figure than the raw count. From January 2023 through September 2025, CHS-involved visits held relatively steady at an average of 3.19 per 10,000 emergency department visits.

From October 2025 through May 2026, the average monthly rate was 11.97 per 10,000, roughly 3.7 times the earlier figure. Nearly 200,000 visits across the full study period puts the condition in the range of a routine emergency department presentation rather than a curiosity.

Why the Counted Rate Jumped

This is the part that determines how to read every number above. On October 1, 2025, a dedicated diagnosis code for CHS, R11.16, took effect in the ICD-10-CM system. Before that date clinicians had to flag the condition indirectly, by pairing a vomiting code with a separate cannabis code.

CDC researchers caution that the increase does not necessarily mean the actual incidence of the syndrome tripled. The abrupt, sustained rise likely reflects, at least in part, better recognition and more consistent coding of a condition that was previously missed or filed as something else.

The practical reading is that the illness was already occurring at something closer to the higher rate and going uncounted. A new code did not create the condition. It made it visible.

What This Means for Treatment Seekers

If you or someone in your family has been through repeated unexplained vomiting episodes alongside regular cannabis use, this is worth raising with a clinician by name.

Because the condition went uncoded for years, plenty of people have cycled through emergency departments and workups without anyone connecting the episodes to cannabis.

An emergency department visit is also a treatment opening rather than just an acute episode. Someone who has been through a CHS episode has a concrete physical reason to consider stopping, and that window is worth using.

Cannabis use disorder is treatable, primarily through behavioral therapies including cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy and contingency management.

No medication is currently FDA-approved for it, so program quality and therapeutic approach carry more weight here than in opioid or alcohol treatment, where medication does much of the work.

Finding the Right Rehab

A few questions narrow the field quickly. Ask whether a program treats cannabis use disorder specifically rather than listing it among substances it accepts.

Ask which behavioral therapies the clinical staff are trained to deliver, by name. Ask whether the program can address co-occurring anxiety or depression, which frequently accompany heavy cannabis use.

Check insurance coverage for rehab before admission rather than after, including what happens if a stay runs longer than initially authorized.

Rehab.com’s directory lets you compare verified treatment centers by location, level of care, insurance accepted and specialty programming.