(5/23/2019) - At least one student is hospitalized after eating a candy laced with THC at Carter Middle School in Clio.

The Clio Area Schools superintendent is sending a strong warning to the community.

"There was a youngster that was not acting correctly, attempted to go home with another parent," Clio Area Schools Superintendent Fletcher Spears III said.

He explained the middle school student was taken to the emergency room. It turns out they had eaten a candy laced with THC.

"It's the typical hard candy that you might make at Christmas, comes out in that real slow liquid form and then hardens up and you crack it and break it open," Spears said.

He said one other student also had trouble walking and staying awake. Altogether, six Carter Middle School students -- a combination of seventh and eighth graders -- ate the candy.

"They didn't see this as any big deal," Spears said. "So, they're ingesting a product that's come in from outside, they don't know what's in it. We know it had THC, but we don't know if it had heroin, rat poison or other different substances that they wind up cutting drugs with."

Spears said the Clio Police Department is investigating that and where it came from.

"We want to encourage our parents - you need to sit down, have very very frank conversations with your children about this type of activity," he said.

While this was their first incident, Spears added he knows with marijuana now legal in Michigan, it won't be their last.

"With these edibles being available, kids see parents, friends taking them, so it must be no big deal," he said. "And, we're not even at full implementation. You are going to see, there's no doubt in my mind, a dramatic increase in this type of activity in school."

Spears is grateful there were no serious health issues. He said the students will be punished. The ones who brought the candy in and shared it could be expelled.