Unless you’ve been living in a cave, I’m sure you know that starting in January 2014, the state of Colorado has allowed licensed dispensaries to legally sell marijuana (aka cannabis) and related products, including “edibles”. Edibles are usually candy or cookies (but sometimes things like butter, pretzels, etc.) that are infused or coated with hash oil. You could buy this stuff before 2014 if you had a special medical marijuana card, issued by the state. But starting this year, anyone over 21 can buy it.
According to some, this has caused a noticeable rise in the availability of cannabis products to children. Around the start of October 2014, one big concern expressed by the police, local media, and some parents was that people would be give out these medicinal candies to trick-or-treaters, and that children would each them by accident, not realizing what they were. And the kids would go crazy, commit violence to themselves or others, or end up in the hospital.
Here is a 9 News report about this.
And here is a video the Denver Police made to inform parents about this threat:
While many parents were concerned about widespread nefarious dosing, many others had a response like mine:
Why would any stoner give a child a $5.00 medicated piece of unwrapped candy instead of a $0.02 non-medicated candy? Do cannabis edible users have too much money and they want to waste a bunch of it giving kids their medicine? All the cannabis users I know and have known in the past wouldn’t do such a thing. And if you’re a sociopath who wanted to harm kids, why not poison the candy with rat poison or something that would really cause long term harm (at much lower cost), rather than just make a kid high for a few hours?
Regardless, Halloween came and went. The morning after, I searched the news for widespread — or even spotty — reports of cannabis candy getting into the hands of children. Who knows, maybe it would be a big deal that would trigger a backlash against THC edibles in the shape of candy.
Here are the news reports I found so far:
Halloween Pot-Candy Scare Baseless So Far (CBS Denver, October 31)
“My honest opinion is that’s an overblown fear that was created by the police,” said CB Scientific CEO Bill Short.”
No Halloween pot poisonings in Denver, hospital says (USA Today, November 1)
“Before Halloween, the marijuana industry scoffed at parents’ fears and said the vast majority of users are responsible adults who would never actually do something so stupid as to confuse the two or deliberately hand out expensive pot candy. Afterward, they mourned the deaths of multiple trick-or-treaters killed by vehicles on Friday night.”
Deadly Halloween Across the Nation (New York Times, November 2)
“Halloween took a deadly turn for trick-or-treaters, paradegoers and party guests across the country, on a holiday that federal safety regulators say is one of the deadliest on America’s roadways.”
I thought I was finally on to something big when I found this news article, with the titillating headline Prince George’s Police Seize Halloween Candy Laced With Marijuana (CBS Baltimore, October 31). But then once I read the article I see it’s just bad journalism. The candy wasn’t Halloween candy. It was just regular properly-labeled marijuana edibles (illegal in Maryland) that the local cops found and seized.
“Officers don’t have any indication that the pot candy was destined for trick-or-treaters.”
Officials say no problems with Halloween pot candy (Denver Post / Associated Press, November 3)
“Denver Police and the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center on Monday reported no cases of people slipping marijuana to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.”
You’re more likely to catch Ebola than to receive marijuana-laced Halloween candy (Washington Post, November 3)
“Despite literally hundreds of wide-eyed press accounts last week of the ‘danger’ of marijuana-infused Halloween candy, we are three days into November without a single instance of Halloween-related pot poisoning coming to light. None. Zero. Zilch.”
Final update:
It’s now November 16, 2014. I’ve been checking back with the news services from time to time since Halloween. This story totally dropped off the face of the media radar the day after Halloween. I can’t find any follow-up articles. There apparently were never any reports nationwide (much less in Colorado, where I live) of kids getting marijuana candy for Halloween by accident or due to malicious stoners. The police haven’t reported anything, the local schools haven’t reported anything, and the hospitals haven’t reported anything.
I’m not going to bother checking back, because I’m pretty sure that every kid has eaten all their Halloween candy by now. So if there was going to be an issue, we would’ve heard of it by now. I know nobody pays attention to this sort of thing — how often the policy and media get it totally wrong — but wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of publicly transparent tally? Imagine a Wikipedia or Snopes.com that listed all the time the police or media scared us about something that turned out to be nothing.
Now I’m off to protect myself against the real threat, which is massive Ebola outbreak at the shopping mall. Oh, wait, the 15 minutes of unfounded fear for that one has already died out, too…