At first, patients were treated with Narcan, for opiate overdoses, but when victims didn’t respond, the sweets were tested and came back positive for high doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, according to CNN.
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The rap festival, called “The Last Weekend on Earth”, became one big, bad trip after someone started passing around colorful packs of so-called “medibles” around 11 a.m., police said. Soon after indulging in treats, twenty-four people had to be rushed from the event to the nearest hospital for an emergency shot of the overdose antidote naloxone. The packages were marked with the name of an unspecified commercial candy brand. A high dose of THC could be deadly.
Richland County sheriff’s Maj. “What likely happened is whoever passed these out did not give the people any instructions”. An unidentified man threw aluminum packets filled with a substance that appeared to be candy to festival patrons, according to officials. As Lt. Joe Petrycki, commander of the METRICH regional drug task force, clarifies: “They didn’t lose consciousness”. Butler is about an hour drive northeast of Columbus.
Narcan is typically used to reverse the effects of opiates and drug overdoses. “They just felt different”.
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However, the sweets went undetected; Richland County Sheriff Capt. Donald Zehner mentions that it’s likely the festival staff didn’t know what they were and that they also were more preoccupied looking for things such as guns and knives; not candy. Authorities said the drugs packaged as candy tested positive for THC – is a mind-altering drug found in the cannabis plant.
