TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – As families begin to gather for the holidays, it’s important to keep everyone safe — and responsible. The Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Cannabis Control is reminding everyone of the dangers cannabis can have on young children if consumed.

So, as you gather with your loved ones this holiday, it’s important to keep an extra eye on the little ones when it comes to desserts — especially if they include cannabis.

“Marijuana can be incredibly dangerous — especially in edibles — which mimic gummies and cookies and desserts. A six or 10 year old might eat five or 10 behind a parent’s back, and they don’t know there is THC and a psychoactive drug in there.” said Joseph Wood, Injury Prevention Health Educator at the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department.

Although cannabis is a legal substance, it still can be dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands.

“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done of the studies, but we know that if an infant or youth eat a lot of edibles, they could have trouble breathing, they could have trouble keeping alert, trouble with balance. And in very rare but extreme cases, it could put an infant in a coma.” said Wood.

Not only that, but it can be harder to keep track of how much has been consumed — and when — such as in desserts.

“The thing with gummies and edibles that can be very dangerous is gummies have a long onset time — edibles. It can take one to four hours for an edible to even start having effects, and then those effects can last for multiple hours. Where smoking marijuana is going to be a very quick onset and a relatively short high.” said Wood.

According to the Central Ohio Poison Center, more than 500 Ohio children under the age of six across the state were exposed to edibles from January through November 2024. That puts the state on track for a 30% increase in exposures to edibles among this age group compared to last year.

“We don’t fully develop our brains until our mid- to late-twenties, so consuming marijuana — especially marijuana as a youth, it has a lot of unknown effects on our development of our brains,” said Wood. “And we don’t want to stunt that development, we don’t want our neurons to be hindered. We want to flourish our brain and get it to that healthy point where we can make healthier decisions.”

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