Three senior citizens were hospitalized after eating medical marijuana brownies while at a memorial service, according to police.

Huntington Beach police posted on their Facebook page that three seniors in their 70s and 80s from Huntington Beach and Newport Beach were admitted to Hoag Hospital on Saturday complaining of “nausea, dizziness, and inability to stand unassisted” after eating the brownies.

The three had been at a memorial service of a mutual friend earlier in the day, police reported.

“At the service, a tray of brownies were offered that has since been determined to have contained ‘medical’ marijuana,” police reported. “No one was told the brownies contained the marijuana before they were consumed.”

Police reported this was one of two recent incidents that highlight “the importance of understanding the impacts of marijuana, irrespective of the concept of ‘medical’ marijuana.”

A resident reported on Friday that two people had been robbed at gunpoint in front of his home in the 20700 block of Mataro Lane, according to the Facebook report.

Police found the victims of the robbery were medical marijuana dealers: a 35-year-old man from Anaheim and a 25-year-old woman from Garden Grove.

The victims told police they were delivering to potential patients who said they lived in a nearby home.

The suspects took $1,500 in marijuana along with the victims’ cellphones and keys.

“Robberies and burglaries of ‘medical’ marijuana dispensaries and delivery services are becoming a more common problem in communities due to high profit margins of selling marijuana and all the transactions being conducted in cash,” police wrote in the report.

Huntington Beach does not allow medical marijuana dispensaries but several Orange County cities do, including nearby Garden Grove, which is in the process of registering the facilities.

The federal government last week launched an effort to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, including some Orange County cities that allow the business.

Lake Forest, Rancho Santa Margarita, Dana Point, Laguna Hills and Laguna Niguel were on the list of locations Justice Department officials were targeting.

California state law allows marijuana for medicinal purposes but it is illegal under federal law. Proposition 215 was passed in 1996, which allows marijuana for medical use for patients with chronic pain or those battling cancer, among other health issues.

Justice Department officials said they are targeting large-scale, for-profit facilities they contend are allowing people who are not really sick to obtain and fill medical marijuana prescriptions.

Proponents of medical marijuana are expected to meet Monday to discuss how they will battle the effort by the Justice Department.

Reporters Brian Joseph and Erika I. Ritchie contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7953 or jfletcher@ocregister.com

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