By TERRI SANGINITI • The News Journal • August 14, 2010
The aroma of marijuana drifting from a Newark-area apartment led police to a stash of marijuana that was converted into candy in assorted colors -- apparently the first of its kind to be confiscated in Delaware.
The apartment resident, Alex R. Osgood, 23, of the Hunters Crossing Apartments on Fairway Road, was charged late Tuesday with trafficking marijuana and four other drug offenses.
State troopers and probation and parole officers were checking curfews of probationers in the complex Tuesday when they got a whiff of burnt marijuana, state police Cpl. Jeffrey Hale said.
Just then, two men walked out of the apartment, both reeking of marijuana, prompting officers to knock on the door.
Osgood let them in and the officers spotted some marijuana out in the open and got a warrant to search the apartment.
Seized were 6.6 pounds of marijuana -- 4.1 pounds of it bagged as packages of colored hard candy, which is eaten, not smoked, Hale said.
"The suspect did not talk, so we do not have much to go on as far as flavors or where it came from," Hale said. "It appears to be sold in different colors, which would suggest different flavors."
Each package was stamped "The Gathering of the Vibes," an annual four-day music, camping and arts festival that celebrates The Grateful Dead during the weekend of July 31 in Bridgeport, Conn.
Police there arrested nearly a dozen participants this year on charges of possession of PCP-laced marijuana, mushrooms, ecstasy, nitrous oxide and cocaine.
Also seized in Osgood's apartment were 1.1 grams of hashish, a marijuana pipe and bong, a digital scale and $3,560 in suspected drug money.
According to the California-based website Chronic Candy, marijuana candy dates to 2000, when Tony Van Pelt brought some back from a vacation in Amsterdam and began selling it in his shop in San Bernardino, Calif. At the second annual Smoke Out that year, he sold 2,000 marijuana lollipops in three hours, giving rise to the slogan: "Every lick is like taking a hit."
Parent groups argued that the marijuana-infused candy would be easy for children to get their hands on in novelty stores or online.
In response to the parental outcry, the U.S. Senate earlier this month approved the Saving Kids From Dangerous Drugs Act of 2009. The anti-drug legislation contains language that doubles the punishment for anyone manufacturing, creating, distributing or dispensing "candy products" made from marijuana, including brownies, to anyone under 18.
Drug investigators in the state and Wilmington police drug units said this is the first time they had seen marijuana candy in Delaware.
Osgood was committed to the Young Correctional Institution on $6,000 secured bail.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... uana-candy
