A bag of nacho cheese chips. A chocolate bar. A package of gummy bears. These are what some cannabis edibles look like — deliberately, because adults enjoy familiar formats. They taste good. They're colorful. They come in packaging designed to look appealing.
They are not for children. Children don't know that.
Between 2017 and 2021, calls to poison control centers about children aged 5 and under who had accidentally eaten cannabis edibles rose from 207 to 3,054 — a 1,375% increase in four years, published in the journal Pediatrics. Since then, cannabis legalization has continued to expand. A US News report published last week described the trend as a "shocking increase" in children accidentally consuming cannabis and other recreational drugs. Ninety-seven percent of cases involved children who found the edibles at home.
Why This Keeps Happening
The combination of factors driving pediatric cannabis edible ingestions is not complicated, even if the solution hasn't been obvious enough to stop the trend.
Cannabis edibles are designed to be indistinguishable from ordinary food. Gummy candies, chocolate bars, lollipops, cookies, infused beverages — the entire product category exists to make cannabis consumption look and taste like something pleasant rather than something medicinal or recreational. Many products are packaged in wrappers that closely mimic well-known candy or snack brands. Children find them, recognize the format, and eat them.
"They don't know what it is," said Dr. Antonia Nemanich, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and toxicology at Rush University Medical Center. "And they don't know when to stop."
The potency problem compounds this. A single one-ounce bag of THC-infused chips can contain 600 milligrams of THC — a dose that is toxic for both children and adults when consumed all at once. Children who find an edible package and eat multiple pieces before anyone notices are ingesting doses their bodies cannot handle. The standard child-resistant packaging — a cap that requires pressing and turning — does not stop a curious 2-year-old with enough time and motivation.
What Happens When a Child Eats a Cannabis Edible
The symptoms of cannabis intoxication in young children are not mild. They include confusion, hallucinations, rapid heart rate, vomiting, loss of coordination, slurred speech, extreme sedation, and — in severe cases — difficulty breathing and loss of consciousness. The published case literature includes children who arrived at emergency rooms unresponsive.
The delay between ingestion and symptoms makes the situation worse. Unlike smoked cannabis, which produces effects within seconds to minutes, edibles take 30 minutes to 2 hours to fully activate. A child who eats a cannabis gummy may appear fine for an hour — during which time they may eat more. By the time symptoms appear, the dose already absorbed can be substantial.
Most children who accidentally consume cannabis edibles require medical evaluation, and a significant portion require hospitalization. The severity depends on the child's age and size, the product's THC content, and how much was eaten — all factors that are difficult to assess quickly in an emergency.
The Storage Problem
The data on where children find cannabis edibles is unambiguous: 97% of cases occur in the home, according to CDC data. Not at a friend's house, not on a walk, not in a public park. In the place where the adults who use cannabis also keep their products.
The most common failure is the same one that has driven pediatric medication poisonings for decades: cannabis products stored in accessible places. Purses. Kitchen drawers. Bedside tables. The shelf a child can reach by pulling over a stool.
The recommendations from every poison control and pediatric emergency medicine organization are consistent:
Store cannabis products in their original child-resistant packaging, in a locked location, separately from all non-cannabis food products. Treat them the way you would treat prescription medication. Apply the same logic you would to any substance that could seriously harm a child if they got into it — because that is exactly what they are.
If a child has ingested a cannabis edible, call Poison Control immediately at 1-800-222-1222 regardless of whether symptoms are present. Symptoms may not appear for an hour or more. Don't wait to see what happens.
