6-Year-Old Boy Admitted To Emergency Care After Mistaking Cannabis Candy For Skittles

A young boy in the United States had to be admitted to emergency care after he ate almost 13 times the adult dosage of THC-laced (Tetrahydrocannabinol) candy that was sold to his mother who thought she was buying a pack of Skittles, a famous fruit-flavoured candy. Catherine Buttereit and her family were having lunch at Charlotte’s South End neighborhood in North Carolina when her son spotted the bag of candy at the store and wanted to buy it. Buttereit went ahead and bought the candy thinking that 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.’ And 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.”

Soon after her son ate almost one-third of the candy, he began feeling uneasy. He complained of pain in his pelvic area and said that his chest was freezing and his stomach and head were hurting. Buttereit offered him some water but when he complained that the water tasted ‘disgusting’, Buttereit panicked and called 911. She initially suspected that her son was poisoned.

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While inspecting the candy bag, Buttereit’s fiancé noticed that the candy was infused with Delta-9 THC, a cannabis variant. After being hospitalised, her son slept for 17 hours and was later discharged. Even though Delta-9 THC is believed to be a ‘therapeutic’ drug, it is unclear how its overconsumption affects kids.

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 percent 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.

She blamed the store for not informing her about candy and said, “I’m really 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.”