HMM: A mysterious syndrome that makes marijuana users violently ill is starting to worry doctors.

For nearly a decade, the Australian woman had experienced sudden and severe episodes of nausea and vomiting in connection to using the drug. Before that, she’d smoked safely for years with no symptoms. In 2004, a team of emergency room physicians in the country detailed Mrs. X’s experience anonymously alongside a handful of similar cases that happened in the same region that year. In nearly all of them, patients described an illness that cropped up suddenly, often after decades of normal marijuana use. Piping hot baths were their only relief. The Australian physicians dubbed it “cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome,” or CHS.

Although the Australians’ report raised some red flags locally, most experts continued to believe that cases like Mrs. X’s were rare across the globe. Until a spate of similar reports begin to crop up elsewhere.

Now, several recent studies from emergency room physicians across Europe and the US are beginning to suggest that CHS could be a lot more common than previously thought.

I think if I felt this way after enjoying a scotch or martini, I’d give up the sauce after a lot less time than ten years.