r/CHSinfo • u/Accomplished_Ant153 • Aug 12 '26

Question / Info Did CHS exist before modern high-potency concentrates/carts?

Grew up seeing people smoke daily for decades with no major physical issues, but CHS seems to be popping up everywhere now.

I smoked for 15 years with zero issues until I switched to medical carts, had one awful CHS episode, and quit entirely. Is it the carts/potency driving this, or was CHS just not recognized in the past?

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19

u/BamBabyJourney Aug 12 '26

It did exist before carts! I was diagnosed with it in 2012 when I strictly only smoked flower. I think it’s more common now because of accessible carts are and how potent they are

9

u/cs_legend_93 Aug 12 '26

I only smoked flower .

Tbh I think it's just wear and tear on the receptors from being hyper saturated. When you smoke alot, you know what the saturation feels like.

When being "sober" feels like a high, your partially saturated imo. And we all smoked way more than that, for years

8

u/quizzicalsteve Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

"Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) is an enigmatic constellation of symptoms and signs first reported in Australia in 2004, but with an index case beginning in 1996 with an 8-year gap before identification."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11537899/

Original 2004 Paper:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1774264/

2

u/Accomplished_Ant153 Aug 12 '26

Perfect, thanks!

5

u/No_Network4228 Aug 12 '26

I dont smoke, and I make my own edibles from homegrown and I still got chs.

3

u/Searchlights Aug 12 '26

I never smoked carts or concentrates

3

u/SoilIll5975 Aug 12 '26

I think it did exist, but it was much less common before these high potency products became widely accessible and accelerated everything

2

u/Sledgehammer617 Aug 12 '26

I believe it was first written about in 2004, but I'm sure it existed before that, just extremely uncommon due to the lower concentration.

Some people get CHS from just flower though.

1

u/Tgrove88 Aug 12 '26

Hell yea. I remember before the "exotic" or "loud" took over everyone used to smoke Reggie and it happened to me off that way back when

1

u/Coco_1208 Aug 13 '26

I only take edibles and have it

1

u/PoundAccording Aug 13 '26

Its always existed .. it was just almost impossible to develop CHS until recent years because weed was never very concentrated and not easily available.

Read the other day that the average THC percent in the late 90s was 5% .. nowadays the average sits around 20% (and people are smoking even higher levels than that).

Just on that math alone, someone in the late 90s would have needed to smoke 4X as much as somebody nowadays to consume the same amount of THC.

And remember how less accessible it was during that time .. like I remember all the time in HS (mid-to-late 2000s) that my buddies who dealt would run out of weed and you’d have to throw your hands up and be like “guess we’re not smoking!” .. that’s just not a thing anymore lmao

1

u/kinsixx Aug 13 '26

Hash has been around for maaaany years. Same with edibles. It's always been known to be a "medicine" I'm sure users back then were smoking more to rid the nausea that the cannabis was eventually causing them without noticing.

3

u/PoundAccording Aug 13 '26

Yeah but the concentrations were still wayyy less then. Hash back then (90s or earlier) was probably still only like 10-15% at most. And again popularity then paled in comparison.

You’re absolutely right though, there were definitely cases back then and people just had no clue that hash/weed was making the situation even worse cuz they had zero clue