Wyoming Health Department Offers Tips on Staying Safe During Halloween
On Monday, the Wyoming Department of Health passed on a statement from the Nebraska Regional Poison Center warning parents of things to avoid on Halloween.
The Nebraska Center serves people in Nebraska, along with Idaho, Wyoming, American Samoa, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
Some of those include wearing warm costumes, carrying a flashlight, being able to see out of any masks, avoiding the liquid in glow sticks, using nontoxic face paint, using reflective tape on costumes, avoiding touching dry ice, and not feeding chocolate or sugar-free candy to dogs.
The notice also warned about the dangers of candy out of its original wrapper, homemade candy, and any cannabis edibles that may look like candy.
While there have been some issues across the country with kids accidentally eating cannabis candy, there is little evidence that people tamper with Halloween candy or that people hand out any edibles to trick-or-treaters.
A report by Snopes found that while there have been many warnings about kids eating edibles, as the Evansville Police Department recently cautioned, there have been no actual reports of this happening.
Angie Pasho, the education coordinator with the Nebraska Center, said in an email that at least as far back as 2015, they have had no calls related to "contamination or tampering with candy for Wyoming."
Pasho said between 2015 and 2020 they had no calls related to cannabis exposure, and that "for the day before Halloween to the week after, there is no correlating data specific to Halloween."
In 2020 they had three unintentional exposures in children under the age of 12 to cannabis products in Wyoming, in 2021 they didn't have any exposures around Halloween, and so far this year they've had 52 unintentional exposures from Jan. 1 to Oct. 23.
Kim Deti, public information officer with the Wyoming Department of Health, said they don't have information on kids getting sick due to Halloween candy, and deferred any questions to the Nebraska Center.