Law enforcement in the suburbs of St. Louis are looking for leads after a five-year-old boy wound up with Delta-8 edibles at a local Halloween event.
The St. Charles, Missouri Police Department said that it received “a single report of a parent discovering a small bag of Delta 88 [sic] Edibles which appear similar to gummy worms” at a “trunk or treat” event held on Saturday.
The child’s mother, Tiffany Burroughs, offered her side of the story in an interview with local media. Burroughs has three sons––aged one, two and five.
“They loved going, dressing up in their costumes,” Burroughs told local news station KMOV.
It wasn’t until Burroughs and her boys returned home that she realized something in the candy loot that appeared a bit off.
“I remembered it when we walked through the door, and I said, ‘oh yeah, let me see that.’ I looked at it and was like, ‘oh yeah, that’s definitely not for kids,” she told the station.
The station reported that Burroughs notified both local police and the dining establishment that hosted the Halloween event, JJ’s Restaurant.
Stephen Bell, the co-owner of JJ’s, says he couldn’t find any other contraband on the premises.
“Me and the manager and the other owner walked through the lot. I mean we looked through everyone’s candy, and we couldn’t find anything,” Bell told the station.
On Saturday, the St. Charles Police Department posted an announcement on Facebook urging anyone who attended the event to “check your child’s candy.”
But like Bell, the cops say they were also unable to locate the source.
“Officers thoroughly checked the area and found no one handing out this item. We are investigating to determine how this occurred,” the police department said in the social media post.
Lt. Tom Wilkison of the St. Charles Police Department told KMOV that he and his fellow officers are chalking up the matter to a simple accident.
“We don’t believe at this time there was malicious intent. That somehow these gummy worms got mixed in with candy because they do look like candy,” Wilkison told the station.
The Halloween season always brings fears of cannabis-infused edibles landing in a youngster’s trick-or-treat bag.
Last October, a number of state attorneys general issued warnings of children unwittingly eating a tainted gummy.
“These look-alike cannabis products are unregulated, unsafe, and illegal,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said at the time. “Accidental cannabis overdoses by children are increasing nationwide, and these products will only make this worse.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James urged “parents throughout the state to remain alert against the online sale of these dangerous and misleading products.”
“These unregulated and deceptive cannabis products will only confuse and harm New Yorkers, which is why they have no place in our state,” said James. “It is essential that we limit their access to protect our communities and, more specifically, our children. In light of an increase in accidental overdoses among children nationwide, it is more vital than ever that we do everything we can to curb this crisis and prevent any further harm, or even worse, death. My office is committed to preventing the sale of these products and protecting the wellbeing of all New Yorkers. I urge everyone to remain vigilant against these products and to report these harmful items to my office immediately.”
But many of these warnings have proven overblown––if not unfounded. In May, local New York station WGRZ reported that James’ office received merely one complaint about deceptive cannabis packaging.
