{"id":134707,"date":"2025-10-20T21:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134707\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T21:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:13:12","slug":"mothers-cannabis-edibles-warning-after-her-son-is-hospitalised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134707\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s cannabis edibles warning after her son is hospitalised"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin EastaughSouth of England<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Illegal drugs are being packaged to resemble authentic sweets<\/p>\n

A mother from Oxfordshire is warning of the dangers of drugs packaged to look like sweets after her son ate an entire bag of cannabis gummies.<\/p>\n

The 17 year-old took the illegal drugs, branded to look like Starburst sweets, in his bedroom and had to be rushed to hospital after developing chest pains.<\/p>\n

Researchers studying similar drugs have said some even contain the synthetic drug spice<\/a>, rather than cannabis.<\/p>\n

Thames Valley Police said it recognised “the concern these gummies pose, particularly due to their appeal to younger individuals”.<\/p>\n

The woman, who has asked not be named, said her son had never tried cannabis edibles before.<\/p>\n

She said he took one and, when nothing happened, finished the whole pack of six \u2013 not realising they can take more than an hour to take effect.<\/p>\n

Professor Chris Pudney, from the University of Bath, who works with police forces to test cannabis edibles, said it was likely he had consumed a “massive dose”.<\/p>\n

The pack suggested each sweet contained 68mg of THC – the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis. <\/p>\n

Prof Pudney suggested that would be an “incredibly high” dosage “and for some people would probably be quite risky”.<\/p>\n

“Every time you use one of these products you really don’t have a great idea of the dosage of THC you’re getting,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And in some cases we even found it’s not THC at all – it’s actually a synthetic drug that we normally find in prisons called spice.”<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Prof Chris Pudney has found THC levels in cannabis edibles contained “a lot of variance compared to what the packet suggested”<\/p>\n

Professor of psychology at the University of Bath, Tom Freeman carried out the UK’s largest survey into cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said it was not know how prevalent illegal cannabis edibles were in the UK, but based on current seizure data it was expected to be “an increasing trend”.<\/p>\n

Prof Freeman said manufacturers were using sweet brands on their packaging because “the youth of today are a big, lucrative market for commodities such as cannabis, nicotine and alcohol”.<\/p>\n

“For cannabis the typical age of prevalence is around 15 to 16,” he said. <\/p>\n

“We then see an escalation into the late teens and early 20s.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police added: “We would ask people to be aware and report any concerns that they may have.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin EastaughSouth of England BBC Illegal drugs are being packaged to resemble authentic sweets A mother from Oxfordshire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-134707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}