Richmond school bans all candy amid concern about consumable hemp

Following an incident last month in which four Armstrong High School students were found “in medical distress” at school after eating edibles believed to contain THC, the Richmond school enacted a new policy barring all candy from campus.

The policy prevents students from bringing candy of any kind to school, as well as home-baked or home-cooked items such as rice crispy treats or any chocolate-covered food.

Students at Armstrong High School said the student body is irritated by the new policy – especially in the weeks after Halloween.

“I feel like it’s messed up,” said a student waiting for the bus outside the school who declined to give their name. “I get it, with the incident that happened, but they don’t need to punish all the kids.”

The action at Armstrong appears to be the first of its kind for a Richmond-area school system. Spokespeople for Henrico, Hanover and Chesterfield's public school systems said no schools in their jurisdictions have implemented similar rules.

Bipartisan legislation that cracks down on products with excessive amounts of THC, the compound found in cannabis plants that creates intoxicating effects, went into effect July 1, but many of the illegal edible products that are making children sick remain easily available in stores across the state.

It is not clear where the students who got sick obtained the edibles. However, stores selling hemp-derived products have proliferated across the state and the popularity of edible hemp products has skyrocketed recently, “largely due to their widespread availability, easy access, and potential to produce intoxicating effects comparable to marijuana’s,” according to a new report from the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.

The report, which was mandated by the state legislature earlier this year, found that edibles containing unregulated THC pose significant safety and health risks, including easy access to the products by minors, which has spurred a rapid increase in poisonings, emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

In the first half of this year, more than 1,200 children were admitted to Virginia emergency rooms for ingesting hemp-derived products, according to data from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Virginia is on track for the highest number of children hospitalized after ingesting these products, such as edible gummies, in any year since at least 2020, when possession of cannabis was decriminalized for adults in Virginia.

Hemp-derived edibles are widely available in smoke shops and some convenience stores across Richmond, including some near schools.

For example, one smoke shop in the city sells cannabis-infused candy.

A pack of “fruit punch splash cannabis-infused gummies” sells at the store for $35. The packaging advertises 90 milligrams of THC. Under current state law, products cannot contain more than two milligrams of THC, unless they also have a 25:1 THC to CBD ratio. The package did not list any CBD, a compound that does not have psychoactive effects.

The packaging instructs users that one “serving” would be a third of a gummy.

The shop’s owner did not make himself available for an interview.

The cannabis products that are sending children to the hospital are different from the regulated marijuana that was decriminalized in Virginia in 2020, said Christopher Holstege, director of the Blue Ridge Poison Center, and an emergency physician at UVA Health.

“Unlike medical-grade cannabis that is subject to regulatory oversight and legalized in Virginia, these synthetic products contain illegal amounts of THC and other derivatives,” Holstege said. “As health care workers, our members have been alarmed by the surge of cases involving children who consume illicit, intoxicating products infused with cannabinoid agonists that often resemble common candy.”

Hemp and marijuana are both varieties of the cannabis plant, but they have distinct differences. Marijuana, with its higher THC content, is still federally illegal and is regulated differently than hemp.

Hemp-derived products have exploded in popularity following the 2018 Farm Bill, federal legislation that removed hemp from the definition of marijuana, in an effort to legalize forms of cannabis with low amounts of intoxicating THC.

The federal law legalized many harmless forms of hemp, including hemp fiber, rope and paper. It also inadvertently opened the door for retailers to legally sell delta-8 THC and other hemp-derived cannabinoids. Since then, the retail sales of these non-marijuana products has soared in popularity, as have contaminated products and youth emergency room visits from ingesting hemp-derived cannabinoids.

Six incidents reported in Richmond schools

Richmond Public Schools spokesperson Alyssa Schwenk said there have been six edibles-related incidents so far this academic year across city schools that resulted in discipline referrals, and the district is also hearing anecdotally concern regarding their use.

Schwenk said the no-candy policy at Armstrong High School will be reevaluated in the second semester of the school year, which starts in January.

Richmond School Board member Jonathan Young called the policy “embarrassing.”

“Instead of policing narcotics, we've decided to police snacks,” Young said. “Instead of doing the hard work, the heavy lift, and going upstream to identify the origin of the problem — that we have persons elected to office who are celebrating narcotics and are OK looking the other way as kids use drugs — they would rather be downstream and say ‘we’ve got to fix a snack policy.’ ”

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras, in a letter to middle school families earlier this month, announced that all RPS middle schools have implemented randomized bag checks during student arrival each morning. The new administrative protocol followed an incident in which an unloaded weapon was found in a student’s backpack. Kamras’ letter also mentioned “a rise in the number of students bringing edibles onto campus.”

“In addition to not being allowed under [the student code of ethics], we know such substances can be extremely dangerous, even fatal, to our children,” Kamras wrote.

A 4-year-old boy in Spotsylvania County died last year after eating a large amount of marijuana-infused gummies. His mother was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of involuntary manslaughter and felony child neglect.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bipartisan legislation this year that is intended to crack down on businesses that are illegally selling intoxicating hemp-derived products. Despite the new policy, many gas stations, vape shops and pop-up stores across the commonwealth continue selling illicit products.

Since the law went into effect July 1, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has assessed penalties of more than $1.5 million in fines against noncompliant Virginia businesses.

This month, a group of leading medical and law enforcement organizations announced a coalition to combat synthetic cannabis called Virginians for Cannabis Safety. The new partnership is made up of some of the state’s largest medical and law enforcement organizations, including the Virginia Association of School Nurses, the Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians, the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association and the Virginia State Police Association.

The group is focused on “keeping dangerous products away from children and unsuspecting consumers” by enforcing existing state law and educating communities on the dangers of unregulated products that have proliferated across the state.