The Connecticut Department of Children and Families says there has been an uptick in children accidentally ingesting cannabis since the drug was legalized in Connecticut earlier this month, just 22 days ago.
DCF says since July 1 there have been five cases of kids consuming some type of cannabis product. All of those children will be OK, but it was alarming enough to prompt the agency to put out a new PSA.
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The PSA talks about the importance of safely storing cannabis products, especially ones like gummies and candy bars, which look like something a kid would want to eat.
Vannessa Dorantes from DCF said this was a message they wanted to get out there as soon as possible.
“Kids are quick. It was important for us to pull together a message that transcends whether a substance was legal or not. We did have a cluster of ingestion situations in which kids quickly got something they thought was candy or something they could reach,” she explained.
“We walked into this situation and where we are in this point in time with our eyes wide open. Particularly with the legalization of cannabis, we had outreach to other jurisdictions that were further along ahead of us. to anticipate that this was an area where we needed to focus our attention on,” she added.
Bottom line – just like you lock up guns or put your liquor on the top cabinet, do the same with your cannabis. Keep it out of reach of kids, and pets as well.