Halloween: two Canadians arrested for giving cannabis candy to children

Sylvie Claire / Sylvie Claire, 2022

Two Canadians have been arrested in central Canada for giving cannabis-based candy to youngsters for Halloween, while a child was hospitalized near Vancouver after a similar incident, police said.

Police in Winnipeg, Manitoba, announced Wednesday that they have detained a 63-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman on suspicion of distributing candy containing THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive molecule in cannabis, to children on Halloween night.

In total, more than a dozen youths, ages 6 to 16, harvested the psychoactive candy, according to police, who launched an investigation.

Adults can legally purchase cannabis in Canada, which in 2018 became the first G20 country and the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis.

As a parent, I'm upset about what happened," Winnipeg police officer Dani McKinnon said at a news conference. "As a police officer, unfortunately, I'm not surprised," she added, calling on parents to check their children's crops.

Each of the two suspects faces 13 charges, including distribution of cannabis to minors and reckless endangerment.

In the western part of the country, in the suburbs of Vancouver (British Columbia), an 11-year-old child was hospitalized on Monday after becoming ill by unknowingly ingesting candy containing THC. In this case, the police were not able to identify the home where the candy came from.