Denver's On Weed Candy Alert This Halloween

As Halloween creeps up on us, Colorado, the nation's torchbearer of marijuana legalization, has released a PSA on YouTube in preparation for another potential issue: keeping Denver children from eating pot-laced candy laboriously acquired through hours of trick-or-treating.

In the video put out by Denver Police, the owner of Urban Dispensary, Patrick Johnson, said that it's hard to tell if the candy is laced with pot or not.

The most cost-effective way for [manufacturers] to bring [candy] to the market is to use knockoff candy. They'll buy it in bulk form and they'll infuse it using viscous hash oil. They spray that onto the candy, and once that candy dries, there's really no way to tell the difference between infused and candy that's not infused.

To attest to how awesome Halloween is because of all the free candy, Denver Police spokesperson Ron Hackett used his seven-year-old daughter as an example to ABC News of how dangerous it could be for children:

She could care less if it’s growing mold. She’s going to eat it.

It's a little disconcerting to think that some grown-ups might hand out weed candy to kids cavorting in costumes in their front yard, but Hackett said police found that adults themselves "were being irresponsible with them," consuming edibles incorrectly and in more potent amounts than they should have. Tsk, tsk.

This marks the first Halloween since Colorado allowed the sale of recreational marijuana on Jan. 1 of this year. The state has weathered a lot of flak for legalizing weed — both internally, from anti-pot activists, and externally, from New Jersey governer Chris Christie's criticism of Colorado's move to Nebraska police demanding compensation for the rise in cross-border arrests.

Johnson added that there was no way a child, parent or even an expert in the field could tell if a candy was infused or not, and recommended the safe route:

If anything that your child brings home that doesn't look like it's from a company like Hershey's or one of the larger manufacturers... If they don't look like something familiar, it's best just to toss that stuff into the trash, [or] if it looks like the package has been tampered with whatsoever.

Colorado will face yet another test in the face of its legal marijuana experiment, and although I think the phrase "waste not, want not" applies to every single instance involving food, in this case, the sobriety of preschoolers comes first.

Images: Getty Images (3); Denver Police/Youtube