Trevor Hughes

USA TODAY

DENVER – Fears that trick-or-treaters here might end up with marijuana-laced candy on Halloween appear to have been overblown: Children's Hospital Colorado reported no instances of accidental pot poisonings from Friday night.

The Denver Police Department last month warned parents to be on the lookout for marijuana candies, in large part because they are virtually identical in appearance to candies available from grocery stores. And some "edibles" makers simply buy commercially available candies and spray or inject them with marijuana oil.

While edibles have been available for years under Colorado's medical marijuana system, the Jan. 1 legalization of recreational sales has spurred an explosion in their consumption. Some stores report that 40% of their sales come from edibles, with the rest from marijuana flower or "bud," hash and other THC-containing products.

Before Halloween, the marijuana industry scoffed at parents' fears and said the vast majority of users are responsible adults who would never actually do something so stupid as to confuse the two or deliberately hand out expensive pot candy. Afterward, they mourned the deaths of multiple trick-or-treaters killed by vehicles on Friday night.

"While it is of course great to feel vindicated as an industry that no kids were given marijuana candy illegally, we are first and foremost members of our own communities – we are neighbors, families and friends. As such, when I woke up to check the news this morning to make sure that our worst fears had not somehow materialized, there was no sense of relief, but rather it was sadness for all of the horrible auto accidents that had occurred overnight," said Joe Hodas, a spokesman for the Denver-based edibles manufacturer Dixie Elixrs.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports Halloween is consistently one of the top three days for pedestrian injuries and fatalities because of the increased number of young people out trick-or-treating and partygoers who could be impaired behind the wheel. In 2012, almost half of all Halloween crash deaths involved a drunk driver, compared with 31% on an average day that year. And 28% of Halloween crash deaths were pedestrians, compared with 14% on an average day, the NTSB said.

Washington state, the only other state with legal recreational marijuana, has much tougher edibles regulations than Colorado, which is now tightening them on orders from state lawmakers.