(WXYZ) — The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is investigating how marijuana edibles ended up at Pontiac High School. According to Sheriff Mike Bouchard, this is a growing issue and brings with it not only legal problems but also serious safety implications.
Right now the Sheriff's Office is looking into a substitute teacher’s involvement. According to Bouchard, not everyone is cooperating, making this case more of a challenge.
“Obviously marijuana is legal and so are gummies but we’re concerned about how it’s drifting down into younger ages. And gummies obviously, they look like candy,” Sheriff Bouchard said.
At the time it is unclear if a student was attempting to sell the edibles, which they reportedly got from a substitute teacher. Right now no charges have been filed, but the Sheriff's Office says if they were trying to tell them there will be consequences.
“A quantity of gummy bears, marijuana-infused gummy bears were recovered from the school and we’re investigating how that happened," Bouchard said.
He says this is an issue that he's seeing more locally.
“We’ve seen drug dealing teachers in the past," Bouchard said. A lot of these things don’t come from the actual licensed, regulated, legal part of the marijuana trade. We’re seeing a lot of black marketing.”
In January, a study published in the Journal Pediatrics looked at child exposure to edibles from 2017 to 2021 and found a consistent increase in youth exposure over the past five years. In this case, a school staff member notified investigators, who are working with the district to get answers.
"We've got to work through some of the evidentiary things, some of the people we are talking to are not cooperating so we are using investigative tools and working through the process," Bouchard said.
The district tells 7 Action News that they’ll speak more about this once the investigation is complete. Bouchard’s message to parents —lock up edibles far away from kids as they can easily pass as candy.
