Poppy Bilderbeck
A mother has been arrested after her six-year-old took her homemade marijuana edibles into school.
When you're little, all you want to do is bring in the coolest item for 'Show and Tell' or for it be your birthday so you can bring in cakes or sweets and feel like the most popular kid in school.
However, if there was ever one thing not to bring in, it's probably this.
A child's attempt at bringing in a packet of Life Savers Gummies to share with their friends went disastrously wrong.
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On Friday, 29 April, Melinda A. Gaticia's child went off to school at Edgerton Elementary School in Clio, armed with what they believed to be a packet of Life Savers Gummies, eager to give them out to all their friends.
However, little did the six-year-old know that the gummies had been replaced with their mother's homemade Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)- infused edibles.
Multiple students subsequently fell ill 'in less than 20 minutes' after consuming the gummies; many left 'unconscious, short of breath [and] lethargic,' with at least four having to be taken to hospital.
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson explained the authorities confusion over what could have caused such a scene, with fears of carbon monoxide poisoning and a gas leak.
The whole school subsequently had to be evacuated - a total of over 400 students.
After a leak was ruled out, the school emailed parents to inform them it believed the children's illness to have been caused by them ingesting a foreign substance of some kind.
While it's legal to make your own marijuana edibles in Michigan, authorities condemned Gaticia for leaving them - each gummy containing up to 30 milligrams of THC oil - in reach of her child.
Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton acknowledged how the mother 'probably just made a mistake here'. However, he noted: "Nobody's saying she's a criminal. She made a mistake, but it's a mistake that has caused a lot of havoc."
Three of the four children who required hospital attention returned home on Saturday and the fourth on Sunday. All students returned to school on Tuesday, 3 May and are doing 'very well' according to the superintendent of Clio Area Schools, Fletcher Spears.
On Wednesday, 4 May, Gaticia was brought before a judge in Genesee County District Court. The mum faces one count of felony-second degree child abuse and she pleaded not guilty.
If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison.
However, in a Facebook live video on Tuesday, Prosecutor Leyton noted the case doesn't have to 'end up that way'.
He said: "We'll make hopefully a learned decision as to what the case should result in. But the most important thing is this not happen again in our community."
On 12 May, a probable cause conference is set to take place.
If you want friendly, confidential advice about drugs, you can talk to FRANK. You can call 0300 123 6600, text 82111 or contact through their website 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or livechat from 2pm-6pm any day of the week