ST. LOUIS — On Halloween, adults should take special precautions to make sure children’s candy doesn’t get confused with adults’ marijuana edibles.
St. Louis Children’s Hospital officials said some kids end up not only in the emergency room, but in intensive care after accidentally ingesting marijuana edibles.
Edibles packaging can look like candy, brownies or cookies.
“Often times, symptoms don’t show right away. It can be a couple hours," said Dr. Lindsay Clukies, Washington University emergency medicine physician. "Kids can be lethargic, they can be confused. Honestly, there can be severe symptoms like seizures or have trouble breathing.”
Clukies said sometimes the effects of children eating marijuana edibles aren’t immediately evident.
“You can be so altered that you don’t protect your airway, you have difficulty breathing,” she said. “There have even been cases where we have to breathe for the child, in order to make sure oxygen levels are okay. We’ve even seen seizures from accidental ingestions.”
The phone number for Missouri Poison Center is 800-222-1222.
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