Federal agencies call out Cannabis sellers amid 'skyrocketed' pediatric hospitalizations
Federal Agencies Target Cannabis Products Resembling Popular Snacks with Cease-and-Desist Letters.
For the second time in two years, federal agencies have sent cease-and-desist letters to cannabis retailers, demanding they stop selling products made to look like popular candy, cookies and snacks.
“Companies that market and sell edible THC products that are easily mistaken for snacks and candy are not only acting illegally, but they are also putting the health of young children at risk,” Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine said in a release. “Those that prioritize profits in front of children’s safety are at serious risk of legal action.”
According to a release, the agencies sent letters to Hippy Mood, Life Leaf Medical CBD Center, SHAMROCKSHROOMS, Mary Janes Bakery Co. LLC and Miami Rave LLC, and Earthly Hemps.
CBS6 reached out to SHAMROCKSHROOMS, which is online only, and Hippy Mood, located in Levittown, Pa. The other retailers are located in the south.
Although the former did not respond to requests for comment, the owner of Hippy Mood, Amy Romejko, said her business had removed all products that were noted to be an issue.
“I would never, ever want to put a child in harm,” she told CBS6. “We are totally innocent, and did not have any wrong intention when we purchased and made the products available on our website.”
Romejko said the products had been purchased from a wholesale company out of California for more than four years. She told CBS6 that the company, Flame USA, even previously revised its packaging to remain compliant with cannabis regulations. Romejko added that there are other retailers selling the products in question from Flame USA, so she didn’t understand why Hippy Mood was singled out by the FTC.
CBS6 reached out to Flame USA, but has not received a response.
Legislators in New York, though, have tried to address these concerns during the past two sessions. S5981 and A6666 would require by law that cannabis products sold in the Empire State be in child-resistant packaging.
“I introduced this legislation in 2023 at the request of the American Academy of Pediatrics and physicians at the Montefiore Children’s Hospital because of their concerns for children’s health and safety regarding edible cannabis products,” Senator Luis Sepúlveda (D-32) said in a statement to CBS6. “It has been endorsed by poison control centers and emergency room physicians across New York. The recent actions by the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and FTC against five cannabis companies whose product packaging resembles popular candies underscores the urgency of passing this bill, and I look forward to working with my Assembly sponsor John Zaccaro to place it on the Governor’s desk in 2025.”
Assemblyman John McDonald III co-sponsored the counterpart bill. The measures have been held up in committee.
“The intent of the legislation A6666 is to ensure that any and all cannabis products are sold in child resistant packaging, [which] is consistent with legislation we have passed in the past as it relates to nicotine-containing products,” McDonald, who is also a pharmacist, said in a statement to CBS6. “The same holds true as well for prescription and over-the-counter medications in that all of these items, as well as cannabis, are drugs that, when consumed in quantities over the recommended dose, can be harmful if not fatal to children. These simple steps are in the best interest of public health and safety, and I am hopeful that this legislation can be addressed later in the year if we reconvene or at the beginning of the next legislation session.”
That’s consistent with what Dr. Molly Boyd, who works at Albany Med Health System, said she has seen.
“When I was training, if I think back to all of the thousands of patients I’ve seen when I was training, I can remember one, maybe two marijuana intoxicated patients that had to come into the emergency department for care, and these were adults,” she told CBS6. “Since legalization, that number has skyrocketed for adults, absolutely, and for children. It was unheard of for children to get sick [with marijuana] 10 years ago, and now we’re seeing it regularly.”
Boyd, who said that marijuana is fine in moderation, works as an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine within the Section of Medical Toxicology and Addiction Medicine. She said that children have been coming to the pediatric emergency room with marijuana intoxication on a weekly basis, and that it can be difficult to diagnose if adults don’t communicate with medical personnel.
“I am not going to judge you,” Boyd said. “If you suspect this might be happening to your child, tell us. Tell us, ‘I have THC edibles. I don’t think they got them, but they’re available,’ and that will help us do the correct testing to determine if that’s going on.”
Marijuana intoxication may present differently in children than it does in adults. Boyd noted that children could appear to be septic, or they could be lethargic and unresponsive.
“A dose that would get an adult high can take a child and really get them sick,” she said. “About 18% of patients in one particular study were admitted to the ICU, and 6% of patients in that study were intubated. They had to be put on a ventilator in order to keep them breathing, in order to keep them alive, and it’s marijuana.”
That’s why Boyd said these cannabis products that look like popular candy, cookies or snacks can be so dangerous. Like a child might try to consume a candy bar left out on the counter, they are likely to mistake these cannabis products for the original version of whatever product they are replicating.
“We had two children, and Grandma was watching them, and she just packed their lunches and she put gummies in their lunches, and they started acting weird at school and nobody could figured it out for the longest time,” Boyd said. “Did they have meningitis? Did they have encephalitis? Did they have sepsis? No, they just got marijuana gummies packed in their lunch, and if you look at the packaging, an adult would have a hard time determining that these had THC in it.”
CBS6 also reached out to Ellis Medicine and St. Peter’s Health Partners. A spokesperson with the former did not respond. But Senior Public Relations Specialist Courtney Weisberg with St. Peter’s said the health system had not seen “any unusual increases” in cases of marijuana intoxication; though she also advised that Albany Med would have a better idea because of the pediatric emergency room there.
At Albany Med, Boyd said health professionals are typically seeing pediatric marijuana intoxication from accidental exposures in children aged 2 to 10, but that the amount of marijuana being used by the pre-teen and teen population is also now skyrocketing.
“A couple years ago, I was involved in a talk where it was pro versus con legalization, and the ‘against legalization’ group had a really hard time giving a good argument against legalization because everything – all the data for the last hundred years where we’ve used and documented marijuana usage – it’s fine,” Boyd told CBS6. “As these trends are increasing, where people are using it more regularly, they’re using it in public, they’re using it in hospitals, we’re realizing, as the doses people are taking are going up, up, up, up, up, that there’s a lot of symptoms that go along with it.”
Boyd said marijuana usage has been linked to heart attacks and increased bleeding risk, and that states where marijuana is legal have seen increased rates of suicidality. In children, she noted that there have been no proven pediatric deaths associated with cannabis exposure, but cited a case in which a pediatric patient consumed a “massive” amount of cannabis gummies, contracted myocarditis, and died within 48 hours.
“We know that THC can cause myocarditis, and we know that this patient got myocarditis. Now, there’s a million other things that can cause myocarditis,” Boyd said. “This is the only pediatric case that we can make a true association between death and marijuana ingestion, but it’s scary.”
To address the rising cases of marijuana intoxication among children, Boyd said that legislating childproof packaging would be beneficial. While New York lawmakers discuss whether to move forward with measures addressing that in the next legislative session, Boyd said cannabis users can take precautions to keep children safe.
“If you got into one of these stores, there are thousands of choices, and there are choices that look like candy, that mimic gummy bears. There’s also things that look more like medicine, that just don’t look appetizing,” she said. “If they make brussels sprout THC edibles, maybe you buy the brussels sprout THC edibles, and then maybe your kids aren’t going to eat them.”
Dr. Boyd also advised adults using cannabis products to keep them out of a residence where there are children, and to purchase individually wrapped products, so that a child is less likely to eat an entire bag if they have to unwrap each piece.
“It’s all over the country, and it’s just an absolutely new phenomenon, and it could be stopped,” she said. “It could be stopped with appropriate legislation, just childproof packaging.”
