A 6-year-old spent hours in the emergency room after gobbling 13 times an adult dosage of THC-laced candy a North Carolina restaurant sold the unwitting family who thought they were buying Skittles.
“He was in excruciating pain,” mother Catherine Buttereit told The Post about the harrowing ordeal.
Buttereit and her family had a fun day of duckpin bowling planned Friday in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood that was derailed when the group went out to lunch at the Common Market, which is billed as an “uncommon convenience store, deli and bar.”
The mother and her young son were ordering their lunch at the bar when his eyes caught sight of what he thought were freeze-dried Skittles sitting on the counter, Buttereit recalled.
It was the first time they had seen the crunchy version of the candy — which the boy had been dying to try since learning about it on YouTube — so Buttereit easily relented to her son’s pleas to try it out.
“I said, “Of course yeah, that looks cool. Let’s try it.’ And he handed me the bag and I handed it to the cashier, she punched it in and we finished up the transaction,” the mother said.
“I was never asked for an ID. I was never informed of what I was purchasing.”
The mother-son pair sat down to eat with her fiancé, his parents and several other kids in the family — all of whom tried the new candy without clocking anything strange.
While everyone in the party ate one or two pieces, Buttereit’s son ate closer to 40.
The effects kicked in quickly — while playing duckpin next door to the restaurant, the boy started complaining that his pelvic area was burning, his chest was freezing, his head hurt and his stomach was in knots.
“But he didn’t exhibit symptoms of my child that was actually in pain. He kind of had like a smirk on his face,” said Buttereit.
She initially thought he may have simply needed to use the bathroom, but decided to call 911 after he told her the water she was feeding him tasted “disgusting” — a phenomenon Buttereit once heard is a symptom of poisoning.
That’s when Buttereit’s fiancé read the ingredients of the bag to discover it was laced with Delta-9, the primary psychoactive component of the cannabis sativa plant.
“He said it’s marijuana pot and three pieces was an adult side serving,” the shocked mother said. “So by that point, he had consumed about a third of the package, which is about 30 to 40 pieces they estimated in the hospital. So he essentially had like 13 times the dose for an adult and he’s like a 40-pound 6-year-old.”
Though Delta-9 is considered a therapeutic drug, the doctors told Buttereit they weren’t sure what the long-term effects would be for the young and small child.
The young boy slept in a deep 17-hour sleep while at the hospital before he was allowed to go home, where he slept some more.
“The first thing that he said when he woke up was, ‘At least it doesn’t hurt anymore,’” Buttereit said.
While marijuana is illegal in North Carolina, Delta-9 THC products with a maximum of 0.3% content can be sold at hemp shops, convenience stores and online stores throughout the state.
Some packages do, however, have a suggested 21+ stamp on them, as Buttereit claims the package she bought had, but in extremely small lettering.
Despite their classification as a cannabis-related item, stores are not required to enforce age restrictions for their sales, according to the state’s Information System.
Common Market, however, allegedly admitted to Buttereit that they have a strict policy for IDing customers as they would for alcohol drinkers and that the candy is typically kept in a Plexiglas case behind the counter, not within reach of a customer.
The store did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, but confirmed to WSOCTV that the item should have been locked up and that staff is trained to educate customers when buying those types of products.
The availability concerns Buttereit, who fears other parents uneducated on Delta-9 could end up in the same terrifying situation.
“I’m really just trying to bring awareness to other parents and caretakers that this extremely new drug product is available now in family-type settings where children are going to be, not only in exclusive vape-type shops anymore,” Buttereit said, adding that business owners need to “do their due diligence in training and educating their employees and being very proactive on making sure that these products are not in the hands of children.”
“I completely accept my negligence as a parent. I made the mistake of not reading the package and I’m dealing with those consequences. But it was 50-50 negligence. That product was not in its proper storage place.”
