The residents of White Water, North West District (NWD) are being urged to be very careful with what they buy from shops in the area following Sunday’s consumption of candy which turned out to be cocaine by three children, Toshao Ernice Samuels said.
Samuels, who travelled to the city last week, told this newspaper that he is following the matter closely and urged police investigators to do all that is necessary to get to the bottom of it. He told Stabroek News that a Kumaka businesswoman and the shop owner who sold the sweet to the children have been transported to Georgetown for questioning.
The man said it is important to “trace back the system”, to ascertain how the cocaine wrapped in the Gold Finger brand candy wrapper ended up in the community.
“This thing is very serious for the children. In future we have to be very careful. It could be in everything else,” he told this newspaper.
He said he had not received any information from the police, but he intended to
follow up the matter.
According to Samuels, after the incident, a meeting was held with residents and they were advised to be very careful with what they purchased. “Everyone has to be on guard and be more careful,” he said.
He said that to the best of his knowledge this was the first time there was the presence of cocaine in the community.
Meanwhile, the three children were taken to the Mabaruma Hospital, 15 miles away, for additional treatment after relatives saw no change in their conditions. A relative said they were given additional medication before being sent away. She said relatives are closely monitoring them.
Stabroek News had been told that on Sunday afternoon, the children were sent to a community shop to make some purchases and among the things they bought were $80 worth of Gold Finger sweets.
One of the girls, age 11, first bit a sweet and realised that it tasted bitter and smelt funny.
She then asked the other girls both 13 years old, to taste the same sweet. Shortly after this, their tongues began to get numb and they felt weak. Stabroek News was told that the girls’ eyes had a reddish colour. They lost consciousness on their way to the Mabaruma Hospital.
According to what Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had explained, it would appear that the sweets were removed from their wrappers and replaced with cocaine, which was moulded to look like the original sweet.
He said a file had been prepared on the matter and sent to the DPP.
Stabroek News was told that police subsequently seized dozens of the Gold Finger brand sweets from the shop and they all looked similar to the one the children had tasted.
Police subsequently said that lab tests of the sweets which caused the unusual reactions in the children tested positive for the presence of cocaine.
