Hide your weed!
That was the message Mayor de Blasio and top city health officials had Tuesday for New York City parents who indulge in edible marijuana as more and more young children are being hospitalized after getting into Mom and Dad’s stash.
“Hey parents, take responsibility!” Hizzoner said at his morning press briefing. “If these are in your home, you’ve got to secure them. You can’t let them be anywhere near your kids — like so many other things that can be dangerous to your kids. So let’s begin with people actually taking some personal responsibility.”
De Blasio’s comments came in response to an NBC New York story earlier in the morning that reported a “skyrocketing” number of kids having to go to the emergency room after ingesting edible weed — from six cases in the metropolitan area in 2018 to 127 last year.
That increase does not account for the statewide legalization of recreational marijuana this year, but some health officials fear matters could get worse with an expected increase in weed consumption.
“Parents should invest in a lockbox. They’re inexpensive. It’s a simple way of being sure that edibles are not accessible to children,” said NYC Health + Hospitals honcho Mitchell Katz. “Many people don’t understand the effect of [a] dose when it comes to your weight, so that a product that could be perfectly safe for a 160-pound man is not at all going to be safe for a 20-pound child. And that’s what the essential problem here is.”
De Blasio didn’t just fault stoner parents, though. He laid part of the blame at the feet of weed distributors and Gov. Cuomo.
“The labeling of these products needs to make clear that they could be dangerous to children. That safety message should be out there. It should be all over any place selling these products,” he said. “The packaging should be made to not look like candy or anything that might tempt a child.”
De Blasio pointed to the fact that Cuomo has not named a director for the Office of Cannabis Management or appointees to the Cannabis Control Board.
“It is time for the state to wake up and do its job,” de Blasio said.
A Cuomo spokesman told NBC earlier in the day that the state is “actively working to ensure the Office of Cannabis Management and the Cannabis Control Board can begin implementing a safe, equitable and transparent adult-use cannabis industry as soon as possible.”
Later, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in response to de Blasio that Cuomo is “ready to advance nominations” for state Senate confirmation, but that the Senate is not in session, “nor have they indicated when they would be returning.”
“After all these years I can’t believe that the mayor still doesn’t know how state government works,” he said. ?
