Twitter Has a Field Day With Reporter’s Fearmongering Tweet About Halloween Candy ‘Laced With THC’

For decades, parents and police have been scaring the bejesus out of children (and themselves) when it comes to what strangers might be giving trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Some readers may remember urban legends about complete psychopaths placing razor blades in candy apples or lacing gobstoppers with poison.

Every year, the scaremongering seems to start earlier and earlier. To wit, on Tuesday September 28 – more than a month before Halloween – reporter Jaclyn Lee of WPVI in Philadelphia tweeted a warning from the Bensalem Police Department in Pennsylvania. The department is advising parents to make sure they look at their children’s candy to make sure they’re not about to eat edibles containing THC that are designed to look like regular snacks.

BEWARE: As Halloween gets closer, @BensalemPolice are warning parents to LOOK at your child’s candy before they eat it. They confiscated these snacks that look a lot like the real thing. All are laced with THC @6abc pic.twitter.com/u6GFBXt08g

— Jaclyn Lee (@JaclynLeeTV) September 28, 2021

The reactions on Twitter were swift, predictable, and amusing:

3 things:

1. These don’t “look like the real thing.” These ARE real & are labeled as such. This isn’t regular candy “laced” w/THC.

2. Edibles are pricey (I’ve heard). If somebody gave these as Halloween treats, they were probably stoned & made a mistake.

3. ALWAYS check candy. pic.twitter.com/eumjVBtaf6

— Fr. Robert R. Ballecer, SJ (@padresj) September 28, 2021

Who are these millionaires who are giving out THC candy to children on halloween? https://t.co/O2pv0e5Qhg

— Chris Paul Towers (@CTowersCBS) September 28, 2021

BEWARE: As Halloween draws near, local news & police will fearmonger about our kids being given candy laced with THC, instead of holding local governments accountable for addressing risks from air pollution, housing, lead pipes & paint, cities made for cars, & school shootings.

— Alex Howard (@digiphile) September 28, 2021

BEWARE: As Halloween gets closer, @BensalemPolice are warning parents to LOOK at your child’s candy before they eat it. They confiscated these snacks that look a lot like the real thing. All are laced with THC @6abc pic.twitter.com/y8ZsQ4ixbY

— Ryan Houlihan (@ryanhoulihan) September 28, 2021

My gosh, I thought I had until October for the start of “easily disproven police press release warning parents to check their kid’s Halloween candy for THC edibles” season

— Jacob Pucci (@JacobPucci) September 28, 2021

A) You should be looking at your child’s candy anyway.

B) I promise you NO ONE is giving away expensive THC edibles to kids.

This is fear-mongering dumbness. https://t.co/7kCKkdKQCH

— director of revenge (@russpitts) September 28, 2021

I will travel to Bensalem, PA and make it my mission to personally confiscate every single package of THC laced candy, lest it fall in the hands of children. https://t.co/SoMEhNnuy1

— Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) September 28, 2021

I just don’t understand why anyone would think I would want to give kids my stash of THC candy when I can give them something from a $1.99 value pack of mini Snickers. https://t.co/tzph6zJ1a6

— Jennifer Armstrong (@jmkarmstrong) September 28, 2021

This is serious. Last year for Halloween I heard kids in my neighborhood got candy corn that was laced with tigers. Like Bengal tigers. They were just curled up in the candy corn. They ate a guy. Cuz they’re 500lb cats. https://t.co/E0UQJtqfLH

— Ian Fortey is Haunting Your Trouser Drawer (@IanFortey) September 28, 2021

Reminder: despite this recurring moral panic, the only documented case of a child being poisoned or injured by adulterated Halloween candy was a boy poisoned by a cyanide Pixy stick in 1974 by his *own father*, Ronald Clark O’Bryan, for insurance money.

Stranger danger, indeed. https://t.co/zdGn7s5Mku

— John Rogers (@jonrog1) September 28, 2021

AINT NOBODY WASTING EDIBLES ON YALL UGLY ASS KIDS https://t.co/Rnv240NeEa

— majinbuuuu (@xCocoBuddz) September 28, 2021