Marijuana

Trick or Treat or Drugs? Police Panicked About Pot-Laced Halloween Candy

(Jamie / Flickr)

You can trace the progression of America's terrors by paying attention to what the authorities decide to warn parents about at Halloween. The old standby, of course, is that strangers poison kids' candy and re-wrap it with the precision of Christo. (By the way, this has never happened.)

This year, that fear has been joined by another one: candy will be laced with pot! For instance, reports KCCI, the Knoxville, Iowa Police department is warning its 7,313 citizens that:

This Halloween it is more important than ever for parents to inspect the candy their children receive before allowing any of it to be eaten. The Mid Iowa Narcotics Enforcement Task Force has recovered marijuana laced candy and brownies in our area that were commercially prepared and sold in Colorado that were then illegally brought to Iowa. These items were packaged professionally and would be easy to mistake as regular candy.

Yeah, as if any potheads wanted to part with their $5-apiece lollipops just to watch some little witch wail on her candy and pass out on her Frozen blanket. The department pleads:

Parents—please make certain your children know not to eat any candy until you inspect it. You can minimize risk by only allowing your ghouls and goblins to go to the homes of people you know.

But how can you minimize a risk that is already incredibly small? It's like saying, "Parents, remember to inspect your children's pillows for tarantulas." Sure, you can do that. But you're not really making your kids a whole lot safer.

And if the problem is that pot candy looks identical to stone cold sober candy—which is what the Denver police are warning (with perhaps a bit more reasonable concern)—how are parents going to be able to identify it, anyway? Perhaps they are going to use that old parental standby, "I'll eat this for you, kid"?

Maybe it's time to just calm down and assume that potheads are like the rest of us: They keep the really good stuff for themselves.