UK Boy, 6, Hospitalised After Mistaking Cannabis Candy For Skittles

A young boy in the US required emergency medical attention after consuming nearly 13 times the adult dosage of THC-laced (Tetrahydrocannabinol) candy, which his mother had purchased, mistakenly believing it to be a pack of Skittles, a popular fruit-flavoured candy, New York Post reported. 

Catherine Buttereit and her family were having lunch at Charlotte’s South End neighbourhood in North Carolina when her son noticed the bag of candy in a store and expressed a desire to purchase it. Without realizing the contents, Ms Buttereit went ahead and bought the candy, thinking it was a special edition pack of Skittles.

She told New York Post, “I said, “Of course yeah, that looks cool. Let’s try it.’ He handed me the bag and I handed it to the cashier, she punched it in and we finished up the transaction. I was never asked for an ID. I was never informed of what I was purchasing.”

Shortly after her son consumed nearly one-third of the candy, he started experiencing discomfort. He voiced complaints about pain in his pelvic region, describing a sensation of freezing in his chest, along with pain in his stomach and head. When Buttereit tried to offer him water, he expressed that the water tasted ‘disgusting,’ leading her to panic and promptly call 911. Initially, she suspected that her son might have been poisoned.

Upon examining the candy bag, Ms Buttereit’s fiance discovered that the candy was infused with Delta-9 THC, a variant of cannabis. Following hospitalization, her son slept for 17 hours and was subsequently discharged. Despite Delta-9 THC being considered a ‘therapeutic’ drug, the effects of its overconsumption on children remain unclear.

Marijuana is illegal in North Carolina, but convenience stores and hemp stores are allowed to sell Delta-9 THC products with a maximum of 0.3 per cent content without enforcing age restrictions for the sales. Most THC products have a warning mentioned over them but Buttereit said that the candy package she bought had the warning in small lettering that was easy to miss.

The woman blamed the store for not informing her about candy, “I’m just trying to bring awareness to other parents and caretakers that this extremely new drug product is available now in family-type settings where children are going to be, not only in exclusive vape-type shops anymore.” She added, “I completely accept my negligence as a parent. I made the mistake of not reading the package and I’m dealing with those consequences. But it was 50-50 negligence. That product was not in its proper storage place.”