A 9-year-old girl from New Mexico wanted to share her gummy candies with a few friends at the Albuquerque School of Excellence — but it didn't go quite as planned.
The fifth grader accidentally mistook her grandpa's medical marijuana edibles for fruit snacks found in the grocery store.
The gummies were laced with THC, a chemical found in cannabis. “She thought she was sharing candy, and if you saw the picture on the box, it did look like candy,” Kristi Del Curto, the dean of elementary students told the Albuquerque Journal.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, the school officials only realized what had happened after the students came to the nurse's office complaining of a stomach ache.
"We asked to see the box, which had been tossed in the trash after it was empty," Kristi said. "As soon as we looked at it, we said, ‘Nope. That is not candy.'”
Keep scrolling to learn more about the story and how the school handled it.
Photos: PixnioFlickr / Chris Gold
A 9-year-old girl and a few friends got sick at school in January 2018 when they accidentally ate marijuana gummies.
The little girl mistook the "adult" candy for fruit snacks.
The students, who attend the Albuquerque School of Excellence, immediately started feeling sick after eating what they thought were store-bought gummies.
Between three and five students were affected by the marijuana gummies.
“We noticed the student who initially brought the edible to our school was acting strange. She started saying she couldn’t see,” The Dean of Elementary Students, Kristy Del Curto told KRQE.
The young girl thought she had grabbed normal gummy candy and was excited to share them with her friends.
The 9-year-old mistakenly grabbed marijuana gummies, like these, from her house that supposedly belonged to her grandpa.
While this is not the exact brand she took, at first glance, you can tell they look exactly like children's gummies.
Edibles are laced with THC, a psychoactive chemical found in cannabis. Edibles are usually more potent than smoking marijuana on its own.
According to The Stranger, an "edible high" lasts much longer — up to three to four hours and only one or two gummies should be eaten at a time.
Fruit gummies found in stores, like these, look just like the ones laced with THC. For a small child, it's an easy mix-up.
As you can see, the edible gummies look exactly like any regular fruit snack a child would enjoy.
The gummies are legal in New Mexico and 28 other states.
The 9-year-old girl went to the nurse's office when she started to feel sick.
“I started feeling really dizzy. I felt like the room was going to flip to the side,” she told KRQE.
After finding out everything she ate, school officials dug out the candy wrapper from the trash and immediately realized it was marijuana edibles.
All of the affected students' parents were called — as well as paramedics — but none of the children have any lasting effects.
On January 18, 2018, the school shared a message on its Facebook page to alert parents about the incident and how they can avoid it happening again.
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