Elementary Students Get Sick Eating Medicinal Marijuana Cookies
In one California town, four elementary school students got their hands on two cookies that contained marijuana -and became ill within hours. According to the Vallejo City Unified School District spokesperson, one Grace Patterson Elementary School fifth grader was given the cookies by an employee at a local store and he shared them with his friends at lunch.
A school supervisor found the marijuana cookie wrapper that identified the cookie as containing THC, the active ingredient in pot. When the boys became ill, three were sent to the hospital for treatment and monitoring and the fourth was sent home.
Marijuana Abuse and Kids
There are three striking points to notice in this story: 1) the age of the children, 2) the willingness of the employee -ostensibly an adult -to give a young child a product marketed for children (it was a cookie, after all) containing a drug, and 3) the fact that it had a wrapper that signaled what was in the cookie implies that it was purchased at medical marijuana shop.
These kids are really young by anyone’s measure when it comes to early drug abuse, and the fact that an adult would think it was appropriate to give a 10 or 11 year old a drug-laced cookie is scary. But the fact that the store employee gave the child a medical marijuana cookie brings to life all the fears of conservatives who are anti-medical marijuana. Whether to store clerk purchased the cookie from a medical marijuana shop, worked in a medical marijuana shop and the boy sought out the product, or bought the cookie from someone else and passed it along to the child, the story demonstrates how medical marijuana products can be abused and potentially hurt the general public by distributing drugs to those who definitely do not have a medical need for the substance.
The Abuses of Marijuana and Other Drugs
As upset as people may be that the cookie given to the child in this California town was likely from a medical marijuana facility, the fact remains that street drugs and legal drugs like alcohol and prescription painkillers -even legal drugs like salvia -are on the street and being abused by children. Protecting children from the harms of drug abuse starts with parental intervention, providing them with a positive environment and good role models as well as other interests to fill their time.
Kids who abuse drugs become teens who abuse drugs and, ultimately, adults who are addicts. If you are living with addiction and your child is growing up watching you get high, save yourself and your child at the same time by choosing drug rehab.
If you would like to learn more about the programs available to you at Michael’s House, contact us today for more information.
