For a while, America’s parents had to worry about their young children mistaking those colorful soap pods for candy and ending up in the Emergency Room. Then just when we got a handle on that, here came colorfully-packaged cannabis edibles, to further confuse the tykes.
It’s happening again, but this time, it’s deliberate on the part of the makers — drug dealers operating on the black market. They’re going to great lengths to impersonate popular sweeties, up to and including AI-quality fake brand name packaging.
This comes from Los Angeles:
2.2 million illegal cannabis packages mimicking junk food seized in California
A sting operation by California authorities resulted in the seizure of more than 2.2 million illegal cannabis packages designed to mimic junk food, including Sweetarts and Twinkies.
Nothing much subtle about the approach. How is someone supposed to tell the difference between the fakes and the real thing when both are displayed alongside one another in a convenience store?
Maybe the clerk is intended to be in on it, to wink knowingly if you look like a candidate to purchase something more interesting than refined sugar.
The sting that caught them centered on “…11 storefronts in Los Angeles’ Toy District, where several businesses were manufacturing and selling bulk packaging used in the illegal cannabis market…”
Again, this has to be deliberate. The packaging firms must have known who they were selling to, and for what purpose. I guess they needed the money.
The potential for ingestion by little children should be obvious.
The Governor’s comment: “California is committed to supporting our safe and legal cannabis market.” Well, it’s legal, at least. Safe? That’s another matter, as yet unresolved.
If someone is the DIY type, the equipment and materials to package your own product can be found online, for use in the privacy of your own home (or garage).
It’s just too easy. Which means it will be way too tempting to drug hustlers with lax ethical standards.
No shortage of those, is there?
