Six children under the age of 10 have been admitted to Dublin’s Temple Street Hospital in the past six months after eating cannabis jellies.
hree of them had slipped into comas, two ended up in intensive care and some of them suffered seizures, said Dr Paddy Fitzpatrick, a paediatric emergency medicine consultant at the hospital.
“The majority of the children are under the age of six,” he said. “Some of the cases we have seen have been very serious.
“We never had any children presenting after ingesting cannabis jellies until this year. Our concern is that if a child took a large quantity and went to sleep, it could be lethal.”
Dr Fitzpatrick said parents who bring cannabis jellies into their home need to ensure they are stored safely.
“They are illegal, so no one is supposed to have them anyway,” he said. “The best way to avoid danger is not to have them in your house at all. But for anyone who does, they need to treat them like any other medication and store them out of children’s reach. They are very attractive to children, and children can often eat several of them, which can lead to them becoming very unwell.”
He said the six children treated at Temple Street all recovered.
Last Sunday, cannabis jellies worth more than €33,000 and cash totalling €14,000 were seized by gardaí in Dublin.
The drugs were discovered after officers from Kevin Street garda station stopped a man in his mid-30s while he was driving in Bluebell. He was arrested after a small amount of cannabis was found.
A house was searched and the cannabis jellies and drug paraphernalia were seized.
The suspect, another man and a woman were charged with drugs offences. They are due in court on September 1.
Dr Pat O’Mahony, a scientist with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), said the latest seizure indicated the prevalence of cannabis edibles in the country being sold in the form of sweets.
“There has been an increase in seizures,” he said. “One worry is that there’s been an increase in importing cannabis jellies to be sold in schools, which are reopening in a couple of weeks.
“Some principals have written to parents to warn them about the prevalence of cannabis jellies at their schools. It would be great if all schools sent out a warning letter to parents informing them about cannabis jellies so that all parents can become aware.”
Dr O’Mahony represents the FSAI on a new taskforce that has been established to detect and stop the import and sale of these edibles.
An Garda Síochána, the HSE, Revenue and Customs have representatives assigned to the taskforce.
The group met in late May and is due to hold its second meeting before the end of the year.
Dr O’Mahony said the FSAI was considering launching a public education campaign to warn parents of the dangers cannabis jellies pose to their children.
“When a person smokes a joint, they can feel the effects of it almost immediately,” he said. “The difference with cannabis jellies is that they take a significant amount of time to absorb into your system.
“This means that when some teenagers who are experimenting with them don’t feel an immediate effect, they eat
more and more. That’s where the danger lies.”
While cannabis edibles look and taste like sweets, they can contain significant levels of the psychotropic drug THC.
The taskforce intends to send some of the cannabis jellies seized by gardaí and customs officers for analysis to determine the exact levels of THC in them.
“What we do know is they are being imported, and this is a problem that can only get worse,” Dr O’Mahony said.
“It’s drug trafficking in the food system. It’s brand new to us, and we’re trying to get a handle on it.”
Revenue officials said seizures of cannabis products almost tripled between 2019 and last year, from 515kg (€10m worth) to 1,439kg (€28.6m).
While Revenue did not have a breakdown for edibles, it said the “vast majority” of detections were made by anti-smuggling teams in postal depots.
Dr O’Mahony said some cannabis edibles were being imported from North America, with many being delivered direct to people’s doors.
“Some clearly state on the packaging what they are, how much THC is contained and that it is only safe to take one at a time and other warnings. But some of the other products just look like normal jellies,” he said. “Our message is, buyer beware.”
