Police warn of spice-laced gummies sold to young people
Police and scientists warn that gummies sold as cannabis edibles may contain spice, a dangerous synthetic cannabinoid, with high doses posing serious health risks.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
Police have issued a warning to parents and carers about packets of sweets laced with drugs that are being sold to young people. The so-called gummies are advertised as cannabis, with many coming in packets that mimic popular confectionery brands, but some have been found to contain something far more dangerous: spice, a synthetic cannabinoid.
Scientists at the University of Bath have been testing the products. They found that the amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, varies hugely between individual gummies. One researcher said: "You might expect five milligrams or something, and an edible might be something that someone would look for. But when we look in these packets, they can vary up to ten times that sort of value." This means anyone consuming them is effectively rolling a dice on the dose.
More worrying is the discovery of spice in some samples. Spice can cause serious side effects, including breathing problems, heart attacks and seizures. The same researcher noted: "What we've seen in some of the examples we've had is incredibly high concentrations in the edible, things I would think would be a significant risk to someone's life."
The products are easily available and relatively cheap, which is causing major problems for police. In one recent incident, an officer said: "We stopped an 18-year-old on an e-bike a couple of weeks ago, and in his possession we found a large quantity, I think about 40 bags of cannabis gummies, which had the look of fruit pastel sweets." The officer added: "That could easily fall into the wrong hands. So if you've got older teenagers, young adults bringing a bag of these home and then they come to the attention of a five- or six-year-old, they're not going to know the difference between that and a fruit sweet, are they?"
Police have stressed that people have suffered serious illnesses and even died from these gummies. In the lab, a real fruit pastel and a drug-laced gummy look almost identical, especially to children. The warning is clear: these products are not sweets, and the risk they pose is real.
On screen
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Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, mapped by channel. Ordered by how many channels carried each claim.
| Claim | BBC One | Channel 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Animal dewormer and scabies drug sold as unproven cancer treatments, Amazon removed them after BBC contact. | · | |
| Harry's post-mortem reportedly found nitazines as the cause of death after he was suddenly taken off diazepam. | · | |
| Nitazines, a synthetic opioid, are reported to be 500 times stronger than heroin and linked to over 400 UK deaths in two years. | · | |
| Police found about 40 bags of cannabis gummies on an 18-year-old riding an e-bike, which resembled fruit pastel sweets. | · | |
| Some gummies advertised as containing THC actually contained the synthetic cannabinoid spice. | · | |
| THC levels in the gummies varied widely, with some containing up to ten times the expected dose. | · | |
| Tyler nearly died from a batch of dark web benzos laced with nitazines. | · |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
This channel provided the only direct coverage of the spice gummies story. It focused on the police warning, the scientific testing at the University of Bath, and the visual similarity to real sweets, emphasising the danger to young children. The report included a specific police incident and expert quotes about dosage variability and the presence of spice.
- “Police are warning parents and carers about packets of sweets laced with drugs that are being sold to young people.”
- “What we've seen in some of the examples we've had is incredibly high concentrations in the edible, things I would think would be a significant risk to someone's life.”
- “That could easily fall into the wrong hands.”
This channel did not cover the spice gummies story. Its report focused on young people buying fake benzodiazepines on the dark web, some laced with nitazines, and the lack of NHS support for anxiety patients. No mention was made of spice or cannabis gummies.
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.