A few family members took a trip to the hospital recently after unwittingly eating slices of birthday cake that had been garnished with cannabis-infused chocolate.
An unnamed family was having a birthday lunch at home in Melbourne, Australia on February 3 when the party took a turn that was unexpected by all but one person in attendance.
“[It was a] family lunch, everyone’s having a lovely time and cake was passed around at dessert with fruit and cream, and some nice little chocolate chunks sprinkled all over it,” said a woman in her fifties who referred to herself as Anne during an interview with 3AW. “Turns out that the chocolate chunks contained marijuana.”
One of the family members, a man in his late twenties who admitted to the prank later, thought that he could “liven-up the family birthday party” by adding cannabis-infused chocolate the to the cake, but things didn’t go as he might have anticipated.
Anne explained that within an hour, her throat had swelled and she felt dizzy as other family members also began experiencing the effects of the cannabis that they had unknowingly ingested.
The woman said that within three hours, her and four others were hospitalized where she was treated for anaphylaxis with adrenaline. Anne said that she experienced side effects for three days after the incident.
Anne’s parents, who are said to be in their eighties, had also consumed some of the cake and spent the night in the hospital as one of them experienced an increased heart rate and the other had suffered from vomiting at the party.
The family opted not to involve the police but had dealt with the prankster family member on their own.
There are laws to allow for medicinal use of cannabis in Australia, but recreational marijuana is currently illegal in the country.
