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* From yesterday’s Dispatch-Argus…
The Bureau County Sheriff’s Department is investigating cannabis-laced candy given out Sunday night during trick-or-treat in this town of 350 people.
According to a sheriff’s department news release, parents provided officers with candy labeled Crunch Choco Bar, with cannabis leaves on the packages, that were given out Sunday night in the village about 40 miles east of the Quad-Cities.
Bureau County Sheriff Jim Reed said the candy was tested and found positive for cannabis.
Sheriff Reed’s press release is here. It includes a photo of the candy bars. WQAD TV and the Bureau County Republican also covered the big story.
But, wait. Marijuana edibles aren’t cheap enough to be giving them to trick-or-treaters. And handing out a unique piece of candy makes it pretty easy to trace back to the source. You’d have to be a really weird person to do that. Then again, weird people abound.
* A pro-pot blog took a closer look…
First of all, the report claims it was one candy bar, but the picture showed four. Google image search of the candy pic turned up only articles related to the Bureau Sheriff’s claims. I could find no candy listed by that name, either. Odd.
So I looked closer. Turns out, I didn’t even need to look that close. There are clearly Japanese characters printed on the candies. Japan is even more strict about marijuana and other drugs than America, so there is almost no chance whatsoever that some Japanese cannabis candy made its way to rural Illinois and into trick or treat bags. The marijuana leaves on them? Those are Japanese maple leaves. They are a popular design image, and do rather look like marijuana leaves.
* US News & World Report updated its readers…
A sheriff’s department in Illinois is being mocked after warning that children may have received pot-infused Halloween candy with cannabis leaf wrappers. The suspicious trick-or-treat candy apparently is Japanese and marketed with a maple leaf.
Sgt. Gary Becket of the Bureau County Sheriff’s Office in north-central Illinois would not say Wednesday that the Crunch Choco Bar candies were subject to mistaken identification but suggested cautious reporting on the matter.
“I’m not making any official statement right now. A follow-up press release will be sent out once the final lab testing has been done,” Becket told U.S. News after the blog Dankspace and Jacob Sullum of Reason reported the apparent mix-up.
Becket said an initial press release, posted on Facebook with a warning to parents, “was an immediate alert sent out because of the nature of the day, which was Halloween.”
* And the state crime lab came back with a negative result…
On Tuesday, Bureau County Sheriff Jim Reed admits there is room for error in the field test, however, he said he’s never seen a false positive test for cannabis throughout his time with the force.
Reed said the candy has been sent into a laboratory, where it will be confirmed 100 percent whether or not it does contain cannabis.
Wednesday afternoon, Reed sent out a press release stating results from the Illinois State Crime Lab in Morton confirmed the candy did not contain THC and was safe for consumption.
The sheriff is living in a fantasy world. As we’ve discussed before, there’s plenty of evidence that these field tests routinely produce false positive results.
So, yeah, better safe than sorry, I suppose. But it’s time that law enforcement fesses up to a very real problem with these $2 field test kits.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:29 am
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Given where I grew up and the strict religious upbringing stressed on/by people in my home area I was humored and saddened with how many people shared this warning on Facebook. People will share anything.
Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:37 am
If Sheriff Taylor were around, he’d take away Barney’s bullet and deputize Gomer over this fiasco.
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:37 am
We got trouble,right here in river city folks….
So who got to eat the candy bar ?
Comment by Anotheretiiree Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:42 am
Very amusing.
Comment by Blue dog dem Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:43 am
The name of the village in Bureau county doesn’t appear in this story.
Comment by Cook street Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:43 am
Reefer madness strikes again!
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:44 am
My kid has a hoodie from Japan with a red Japanese maple leave on it. Some sort of popular brand there. anyway, they won’t let him wear it to school or any school sponsored events
Comment by Anon Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:45 am
So how many people are now or have been unwilling guests of various counties/cities/etc. based on these oh so accurate(snark) field tests???? Oh yeah, we don’t talk about that either….
Comment by Silent Majority Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:47 am
This is almost as bad as the Christian County Sheriff screaming bloody murder every single time the idea (or even concept) of marijuana legalization is mentioned.
Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:58 am
Watch out Canada… your maple syrup is next!
http://www.npr.org/tags/153207493/maple-syrup
Comment by Anon221 Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:59 am
===the Christian County Sheriff screaming bloody murder===
Yeah, that guy is straight out of central casting for Fox News.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:00 am
@Cook Street, Manlius is the town, about 350 people and home to the consolidated Bureau Valley High School
Comment by 100 miles west Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:02 am
Won’t somebody please think of the children! How many poor kids had all their candy thrown away due to this mess? All those hours walking door to door like some precinct captain for free treats gone to waste. Captain buzzkill strikes again, facts be damned.
In all seriousness this just goes to show how much law enforcement has riding on the war on drugs and more specifically cannabis prohibition.
Comment by frisbee Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:15 am
Rich - the worst part is that Sheriff Kettlekamp and his family are good people. I have known them for years. But the anti-pot stuff is so over the top and hard to take seriously.
Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:17 am
Pot is good for you anyway..in fact it is actually a miracle cure for all sorts of disease…what is the big deal?
Comment by Saluki Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:21 am
Bureau Country needs a real Sheriff like some guy from Indiana or Kentucky. They would bring law and order to his county.
Comment by Mokenavince Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:22 am
… it would have been safe for consumption even if it was 100% THC…
Comment by Homer J. Quinn Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:23 am
glad to see you’ve come around, saluki.
Comment by Homer J. Quinn Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:24 am
False positives and negatives are always trouble. And maybe the Sheriff should have run a second test and googled the candy.
But marijuana is not safe for children. Colorado has had an increase in ER visits by children who eat pot laced brownies.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:42 am
A “lowest bid” item sometimes turns out to be “lowest quality” and “lowest reliability”.
Comment by DuPage Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:46 am
At least there are tons of munchies at hand.
Comment by A guy Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:55 am
===Sheriff Kettlekamp and his family are good people===
Glad to hear that just in case he sees this blog post and I have car trouble in his county. lol
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:17 pm
@Mokenavince 11:22 ==Bureau Country needs a real Sheriff like some guy from Indiana or Kentucky. They would bring law and order to his county.==
Buford T Justice would bring law and order to Bureau County!/s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN3c64j2DPE
Comment by DuPage Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:26 pm
Maybe I should cut down my own japanese maple tree before I get arrested.
Comment by NoGifts Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:36 pm
Rich - ha!
Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:44 pm
Is Sheriff Reed up for reelection?
Comment by blue dog dem Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 1:20 pm
A trip to local CVS pharmacy show a cost $20 for marijuana test kit and up to $45 depending on type of drug you are testing for (coke, meth , etc) using urine samples
Comment by jon r Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 2:51 pm
===A trip to local CVS===
Different testing kits. Try to keep up.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 3:03 pm
Manlius is a tiny little burg. These hamlets don’t need social media to spread false rumors, they’ve been doing it ever since party lines were invented.
This type of nonsense shows how the for-profit police state is threatened by drug legalization, and how much the “good folks’ who live in these hamlets overly trust any authority figures. Know that behind these types of Sheriff’s are the Rotary Club mafia of County Board members, real estate salesmen and lawyers that keep them in office, no matter how out of touch with reality they are.
“…There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow…Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail to properly scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing.”
Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837
Comment by Payback Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 4:50 pm
“Colorado has had an increase in ER visits by children who eat pot laced brownies.”
And how different would this be from children who accidentally get into the liquor cabinet? I’m not hopping up and down at the idea of children getting pot, but going to the ER doesn’t mean that those children were in extreme danger.
Comment by Timmeh Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 7:57 pm