The spookiest holiday of the year is nearly upon us, and many people are getting excited about Halloween and all of the fun traditions that go along with it like costume parties, pumpkin carving, and watching your favorite scary movies.
One of the best parts of Halloween for kids is getting to dress up as spooky ghouls and ghosts, or other fun characters, with their friends and go trick or treating.
This year, however, as with many other years in the past, police have had to issue warnings related to Halloween candy, encouraging parents to be on the lookout for candy with one very undesirable ingredient: THC.
THC is the main active ingredient in marijuana, and Pennsylvania police recently discovered a whole bunch of Halloween treats laced with it.
They shared their findings on Facebook, including pictures of the candy and a warning for trick or treaters and their parents.
Drug laced edibles are package (sic) like regular candy and may be hard to distinguish from the real candy.
While recreational marijuana is legal in some parts of the United States, it’s not in Pennsylvania, and police were concerned for kids’ safety after finding a large quantity of ‘Nerds Rope’ candies with 400mg of THC per rope.
The company that makes Nerds candies, Ferrara Candy Company, said that the products were fakes. They’re well-made fakes, however, and look just like the real thing on the outside. They do have a little notice on the packaging that highlights the presence of THC, but it would be very easy for a child to overlook this message and simply open up the packaging to eat the candy.
It’s easy to imagine how a child might end up eating this kind of candy, and it seems like warnings about dangerous Halloween treats are given every single year.
However, one expert, Joel Best of the University of Delaware, speaking to ABC News, says that the fears are unfounded. He’s been researching the concept of ‘tainted candy’ for several decades now and argues that there’s no real threat:
I’ve never found any evidence that anybody has been seriously hurt this way. I don’t think there’s any danger… Something new comes along, and people get excited and start warning that civilization is gonna collapse, but civilization usually makes it another year.
Even if this issue may not be as scary and serious as it first seems, it’s always better to be safe than sorry, so parents and guardians should remember to check their kids’ candy before letting them eat it.
Halloween is a fun and exciting time, and every child deserves to enjoy the day and have the best, and safest, time. Let’s hope that no issues arise this Halloween from any kind of tainted candy and that everyone has a spooky evening to remember!
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**ATTENTION** The Johnstown Police would like to draw extra attention to the Nerds Rope edibles containing 400mg of THC…
Posted by Johnstown Police Department on Thursday, 10 October 2019
