A 6-year-old girl ate a THC gummy after mistaking it for candy in Pensacola, Florida. Her mom, Morgan McCoy, is now demanding safer packaging of marijuana edibles.
It began when McCoy was visiting her in-laws in Jacksonville with her daughter and husband. In a June 1 Facebook post about the incident, it was revealed that there were 30 or 40 people at the house, and some of them were “legal, medical marijuana patients,” according to McCoy.
McCoy stepped out to visit her sister, and one of the other guests jumped into the pool after their 2-year-old child. The parent was fully clothed and had a package of Faded Fruits Hawaiian Punch gummies in their pocket; there was one gummy left in the package.
The parent then changed clothes and put the gummy package in a dresser. And then when McCoy’s daughter went to change, she came across the bag “and, like any 6-year-old would… she ate the candy,” says McCoy.
McCoy later discovered the gummy had 50 mg of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. For comparison, 10 mg of THC is the industry norm, according to Morgan Fox, media relations director at the National Cannabis Industry Association, to Today.
McCoy then returned and discovered the kids sleeping, and she wasn’t worried until the parent suggested her daughter “may have taken a THC gummy,” she says, adding that her daughter couldn’t open her eyes.
“She was completely non-responsive and when I laid her down she kind of braced herself like she felt like she was falling.” And when she began seizing McCoy called an ambulance for her daughter.
McCoy’s daughter spent the night in the hospital, where she was monitored and given fluids. McCoy recalled how her breathing rate slowed sometimes, and at others, her heart rate shot up to “alarming levels.”
“I was up all night with my husband watching those machines,” she says. Thankfully, her daughter recovered and went home.
McCoy says was “one of the scariest moments” of her life. “Had there been more than ONE [gummy] in that package, it is more than likely that I would not have my daughter today,” she said.
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And now, McCoy demands regulation surrounding marijuana packaging. She reveals how the government puts “child locks” on many different things but THC products aren’t one of them.
“We as parents are standing Idly by while these companies are targeting our kids with what can be deadly doses of THC,” she said on Facebook. “THC is a MEDICATION and needs to be packaged as such. Period.”
McCoy has extended her demands to legislators, organizations, and a civil attorney to make a change. And while waiting for. a response, she encourages other parents to do the same.
“We as parents are standing Idly by while these companies are targeting our kids with what can be deadly doses of THC,” she shared to Facebook.