What is 'Scromiting'? ER Doctors Are Seeing it More

—Anastassiya Bezhekeneva—Getty Images Recreational cannabis use is now legal in 24 U.S. states .

After Illinois legalized it, in 2020, James Swartz started to keep an eye out for any changes in public health that might stem from more widespread marijuana use.

A professor of social work at the University of Chicago, he still remembers when he and his colleagues learned about the rise of a distressing condition that seemed linked to chronic marijauna usage .

“We started seeing more and more clinical reports and case studies in the literature about this syndrome,” he says.

“So we were curious: Is that happening here?” They found that indeed, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)—which can include a symptom colloquially called “ scromiting ,” a portmanteau of “screaming” and “vomiting”—seemed to be on the rise in emergency departments nationwide .

In 2025, the condition even got its own ICD 10 code , allowing doctors to enter it more specifically into medical records.

The condition is still poorly understood, and recently, physicians publishing in JAMA wrote a primer on the disorder.

What is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)? An important backdrop to the rise of CHS is a condition called cyclic vomiting syndrome, or CVS, says Dr.

Thangam Venkatesan, a professor at the Ohio State University who is an expert on CVS and an author of the new paper.

“It has episodes of nausea, vomiting, belly pain, headache, and this affects both children and adults,” she says.

During episodes, people vomit or retch four or five times an hour, and episodes can last several days, before abating for weeks or months.

Understanding and avoiding triggers is key to treating the disorder.

CHS was first described in 2004 in Australia , when doctors carefully followed patients with cyclical vomiting who were habitual cannabis users.

It presents similarly to CVS and usually occurs after people have been using marijuana for some time, sometimes as a treatment for other disorders, and involves abdominal pain and vomiting that recedes after people stop cannabis use.