The prohibitionist mindset continues, despite the slow but steady progress we’ve made towards legalization. In some cases there are setbacks, though – mostly involving people’s lack of education and careless handling of cannabis. And of course, many mainstreams news outlets will jump at any chance they can to continue the age-old stigma of the “devil’s lettuce”.
Dezeray Risner of Springfield, Ohio said she found weed in her four-year-old daughter’s fries after the child said the fries “tasted funny and were ‘yucky,’” according to a report from the Huber Heights police department.
“So I told her to spit it in my hand,” Risner told WHIO. “She did and when I looked at it, you could see it. It was chewed up with the french fries. There was the weed in there, the wrap that it goes in or whatever. I freaked out.”
Risner then went to the police department to report the incident An officer saw what he described to be ‘green leafy vegetation’ mixed with the fries and claimed to smell marijuana on the fries, according to the police report.
The Ohio Wendy’s released this statement after the incident:
“Please know all of our customers as well as the quality and integrity of our food are a top priority at Wendy’s and we are taking this very seriously. We are currently conducting a thorough internal investigation and the Human Resource and Legal departments are both fully cooperating with police in their investigation. We will get to the bottom of this issue as soon as possible. It is as important to us as it is to the community.”
This story is not unlike the alarmist sensationalism found in other alleged accounts of parents finding substances like ecstasy in their child’s Halloween candy. Due to the war on drugs, the black market nature of buying substances like ecstasy or cannabis illegally can be very pricey. When something is sold on the black market, dealers can charge whatever they want. When you pay that much for a substance, why would anyone just give it away? The most obvious explanation is people exhibiting extreme stupidity and carelessness. If cannabis was present in the fries, that’s obviously unacceptable and cause for employee termination.
Even though the plant has never been the cause of one single death for thousands of years of use, the only acceptable time to allow a child to consume cannabis if he or she is suffering from a debilitating condition and the parents have received a recommendation from a doctor.
The mother took the child to a local hospital to be drug tested, but no word on whether cannabis was found in her system. Had there actually been cannabis in the girl’s french fries, the mother should likely be more concerned about the high sodium and fat content found in said fries. Cannabis is probably the least of their worries in this instance.
