During a seminar session at IACP 2014 in Orlando dubbed “Has your state drug policy gone up in smoke?” I was reminded of a potential threat to public safety on Halloween: cannabis candy.
Now, pointing out potential threats to kids at Halloween is not a novel concept, and historically many such threats have been overblown. But pot-infused candy merits a little extra consideration if only because it looks so similar to pot-free counterparts which will be handed out in vast quantities on Halloween. Many of the manufacturers of such candies purchase bulk quantities of knock-off versions of well-known products and spray those items with high-concentrate THC liquid, which when dried looks exactly like the mass-market product.
During the wide-ranging discussion about the legal and societal ramifications of legalized marijuana, one of the presenters on that panel — Ben Cort, who works for the Colorado Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation — said that he’s worried about taking his kids out trick-or-treating this year because of pot-infused candy.
Colorado and Washington became the first two states in the Union to have legalized recreational pot, and in both places the use of “edibles” has become rampant. Further, there are nearly two dozen other states in which so-called medical marijuana is legal, and THC-infused candy is widely available there as well. And obviously, similar products are surely available on the black market everywhere, not just states with permissive pot laws.
A Potentially Deadly Threat
The THC content in pot candy does vary, but some candies have had THC levels “so high people report extreme paranoia and anxiety bordering on psychotic behavior,” said a report in USA Today.
In a report by NBC News, Dr. Sam Wong said, “Parents need to know and be aware that this stuff is not harmless to children.”
Wong — who works in the emergency room at Colorado’s Children’s Hospital — added, “The worst scenarios we’ve seen are kids actually unable to be aroused, basically in a coma for all intents and purposes.”
Cort said during the IACP session that one “Gummy Bear” can contain six “servings” of the permitted level of pot.
In Colorado, there have been at least two adult deaths of people who “had too much” of edible pot products. One man killed his wife (because she refused to kill him while he had a pot-driven psychotic episode) and another man threw himself out his apartment window to his death on the concrete several stories below.
A Plea for Social Media Awareness
I first wrote about this problem back in February 2013 when a Texas television station reported that pot-infused candy was becoming popular with high school kids. That was one thing.
But the possibility of a five-year old accidentially ingesting toxic levels of THC is something else.
I urge police agencies across the country to post a public safety warning on your Facebook and Twitter pages so that parents are warned to check their kids Halloween haul. If you have a good relationship with your local media (and I hope you do), send them this bulletin as well.
Use your social media presence to warn parents in your area, that if they should notice their child acting strangely or feeling ill after eating candy, that they should call Poison Control or take the kid to the local hospital for evaluation.
I’ve embedded a video by the Denver Police Department below. It may be helpful in how you craft your message to civilians in your area.
