Pubdate: Thu, 18 Jan 2018
Source: State, The (SC)
Copyright: 2018 The State
Contact:  http://www.thestate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/426
Author: Jared Gilmour

NEW MEXICO 5TH GRADERS ACCIDENTALLY ATE MARIJUANA EDIBLES AT SCHOOL, 
PRINCIPAL SAYS

5th-graders thought they ate ordinary gummies. But then the room
started spinning.

One student passed out.

Another fifth-grader said she couldn't see.

A third started to feel extremely dizzy.

"I felt like the room was going to flip to the side," a 9-year-old
student at Albuquerque School of Excellence in New Mexico told KRQE.

It didn't take the 8- and 9-year-olds -- or the principal of the school, 
for that matter -- long to figure out why the students were reeling last

Thursday: Four fifth-graders had just unwittingly eaten medical
marijuana candies that belonged to one of the student's parents, the 
school wrote on Facebook.

Three of the students ingested one gummy candy each, Kristy Del Curto,
dean of elementary students at the school, told KRQE. But one
fifth-grader gobbled up three or four pieces of the "Incredibles"
candies, and ultimately passed out, Del Curto said.

Del Curto told the TV station that the school called 911, and that
responders watched the fifth-graders to make sure they were safe. The
students hadn't realized what they were eating, they said -- until it
was too late.

While school officials didn't say how much marijuana was in each
gummy, The Stranger, a Seattle-based weekly newspaper, reports that
the candies usually contain about 10 mg of marijuana. And eating more
than one or two could be a frightening experience, particularly for
the uninitiated.

"Think of 10 mg of THC (i.e., one medicated gummy bear) as one serving
- -- say, a single shot of espresso. Some people like double espressos.
Some like quadruple espressos," David Schmader wrote in a 2014 article
about edible marijuana on the website.

The students, for their part, seemed shaken and upset after their
accidental encounter with marijuana.

"All those lessons I took about not taking drugs were all for
nothing," one of the students who ate the gummies told KRQE.

Del Curto told KOAT that the girl who brought the gummies to school
was suspended.

But it wasn't necessarily the fact that she accidentally shared
marijuana that got the student suspended: Technically, Del Curto told
KOAT, the suspension was for violating school policy against sharing
foods because of the risk for causing allergic reactions.

School administrators notified students' parents about the incident by
email, the Albuquerque School of Excellence wrote on Facebook.

"[W]e would like to remind all students and parents to be cautious
about food/drink sharing," the post said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt