At first glance, the two candy packages look alarmingly similar. Both are a fun shade of bright pink and decorated with cartoons of cute little blob monsters licking their lips and looking longingly at gummy candies that are coated with even more crunchy, colorful candy pieces.
Rachel Benzing and Kelly Krummen helped attendees understand the role emergency nurses play in caring for pediatric patients who accidentally ingest cannabis.
But a closer look reveals a startling difference: On the bottom corner of one package reads the words, “THC 500mg.” While one package contains Nerds Gummy Clusters candy, the other contains nearly identical gummies that are laced with cannabis.
“Most kids know what this package looks like,” said Rachel Benzing, BSN, RN, CPEN, staff, trauma and charge nurse at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center ED. “I don’t know about any children that you have, [but] my children do not take just one piece of candy.”
Confusing packaging that contributes to kids accidentally eating THC-infused gummies was just one of the topics discussed during the session “Dazed and Confused: Challenges of Identifying Pediatric Cannabis Ingestions” at Emergency Nursing 2025.
Benzing, along with Kelly Krummen, BSN, RN, CPEN, trauma core nurse at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center ED, shared information about the factors that contribute to accidental cannabis ingestions among pediatric patients, as well as the legalities surrounding the issue; the complexities of recognizing symptoms and how this impacts treatment; and understanding the role that emergency nurses play in caring for these patients.
Rachel Benzing, BSN, RN, CPEN
As more states decriminalize or legalize marijuana for medicinal or recreational uses, there’s also been a sharp corresponding increase in the number of accidental cannabis ingestions among pediatric patients.
However, it can be hard to tell whether cannabis ingestion has occurred. First, symptoms like lethargy, drowsiness, seizures and even hypothermia are nonspecific and overlap with many other conditions.
“That’s what makes this so hard,” Krummen said. “Are they drowsy because they have a head injury and they have a bleed … Or are they drowsy because they ingested something?”
Additionally, caregivers aren’t always forthcoming about whether the child could have accessed cannabis because they fear repercussions with child protective services or law enforcement.
Krummen and Benzing presented three real-world case studies that show the breadth of situations and symptoms that can accompany these cases, including a three-year-old who was admitted to the PICU with an eventual diagnosis of cannabinoid-induced encephalitis.
Kelly Krummen, BSN, RN, CPEN
“It’s a topic I don’t think is discussed enough because it’s things that could be easily missed,” said session attendee Jena Traub, ADN, RN, educator at the Ochsner Kenner ED in Kenner, Louisiana. “It’s easily accessible to children, and I think that a lot of times we fail to realize that these things are even a consideration.”
While a urine drug screen can show the presence of THC, results often take a long time to return, and patients need immediate care in the meantime. That’s why ED nurses need to keep the possibility of cannabis ingestion in the back of their minds, as well as help educate parents about proper safety precautions around keeping edibles in the house.
“We need to be taking those steps to prevent this from happening,” Benzing said.