About 55 people listened to mental health, addictions and intellectual disability services staff speak at a synthetic cannabis symposium at Wakari Hospital yesterday.
Dr Dar said emergency department patients had cyclical vomiting and seizures after smoking synthetic cannabis.
Some patients experienced delayed seizures up to a day after smoking synthetic cannabis, he said.
A 22-year-old man had been in the emergency department 14 times with synthetic cannabis-related issues in the past six months, he said.
Although synthetic cannabis was a ''clinical burden'' on the department, alcohol abuse was a bigger burden, he said. Prof Paul Glue, of the Dunedin School of Medicine, said 13% of admissions to the acute psychiatric ward at Wakari Hospital in a 14-week period earlier this year were related to synthetic cannabis.
In 2010, there were no synthetic cannabis-related admissions.
And the average age of patients admitted was 10 years younger than in 2010, Prof Glue said.
South Community Mental Health Service nurse Frank Gordon said synthetic cannabis manufacturers used clever marketing to target children.
The synthetic cannabis Everest had the slogan: ''It gets you higher than K2'', Mr Gordon said.
''We are fighting a losing battle and it's going to get worse before it gets better.''
Wakari Hospital ward 9b nurse manager Paul Stewart said patients were being admitted to the psychiatric ward to detoxify after using synthetic cannabis.
Many had no prior history of mental illness or substance abuse.
Inpatients were often ''highly volatile'' and used a lot of hospital resources, he said.
Emergency Psychiatric Services staff member Jenni Toplis said synthetic cannabis users were often paranoid, hallucinating, anxious and depersonalised and staff were learning more about synthetic cannabis each day.
''People were calling in saying, 'I felt like I'm dead. When is this going to stop?' and we didn't know the answer.''
