2-year-old Wichita boy hospitalized after taking mother’s CBD gummies, police say

A 2-year-old Wichita boy was hospitalized after taking his mother’s legally owned CBD gummies, Wichita police spokesperson Chad Ditch said Wednesday.

The boy was taken to Wesley Medical Center around 7:25 a.m. Tuesday after ingesting the gummies at his home in the 600 block of North Gordon, which is close to Central and McLean. He was in “critical but stable” condition after having some kind of a reaction to the gummies, according to Ditch and police reports.

The boy stayed in the hospital overnight and was released Wednesday morning, a hospital spokesperson said.

The boy ingested “Delta 8/9” gummies, a police report says. Delta-8 THC is found in hemp, which is regulated in Kansas. Delta-9 THC is commonly found in marijuana and would be illegal in Kansas.

Delta-8 is supposed to have some effects of Delta-9 THC but be milder.

Delta-8 THC products are legal in Kansas as long as they come from industrial hemp and have less than 0.3% THC, according to a December 2021 opinion by former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt. But that same opinion — which also said vapes, cigarettes, cigars and teas that contain Delta-8 THC are a controlled substance and therefore illegal to sell or possess in Kansas — also led a Topeka store being raided by police, according to The Kansas City Star.

Delta-8 THC has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Between December 2020 and February 2022, the FDA had 104 reports of people having adverse effects from Delta-8 THC. Of those 104, about 8% involved children. 66% of the people who had an adverse effect had it after eating a Delta-8 THC food like “brownies, gummies,” the FDA reported.

This story was originally published January 11, 2023 at 3:28 PM.