Almost every American can relate to the experience of walking into a cool convenience store and grabbing their favorite Haribo gummy snacks. For a few in the Netherlands, that candy treat turned into a wild ride. So far, three bags of Happy Cola F!ZZ candies, similar to those found in the United States, have contained THC.
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The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) issued the recall earlier this week for the fizzy cola candies. Several members of the same family fell ill after sharing a package, Dutch media reports. Police investigated, and discovered that the cola sweets contained THC. Only three bags have been cited as causing problems, specifically dizziness. Haribo issued a recall for the entire batch as a precaution.
Candies that could be impacted have a best-before date of January 2026 with batch production number L341-4002307906. Haribo is working closely with the Dutch authorities to discover how it was contaminated and ensure no other products have been distributed with weed inside.
Cannabis has been a cultural staple in the Netherlands for generations, with coffeeshops serving as a vacation highlight for many tourists. Almost 600 cannabis cafes straddle over 100 municipalities. These spaces are tolerated by the government but remain illegal.
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The Dutch government recently expanded an experimental program to understand how to manage a cannabis supply chain from seed to sale. There are 80 coffeeshops taking part as investigatory teams figure out how to manage cannabis distribution and production compliance.
Even with this new government involvement, it is still illegal to add THC to bags of traditional candies that children are likely to eat. As the case unfolds, many are watching to see how this happened to such a large corporate brand.
