A Philadelphia man has been arrested and charged with making and selling homemade cereal bars laced with THC to students at various middle and high schools, parks and homes across Montgomery County.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, Upper Merion Township Police Chief Thomas Nolan and East Norriton Township Interim Public Safety Director Philip Pulaski said that Quashon Rice, 20, was arrested Tuesday on felony drug trafficking charges. The suspect allegedly marketed the drug-tainted snacks through Instagram.
The investigation began on May 10, when a police resource officer responded to East Norriton Middle School cafeteria, where school officials believed a middle school student had been provided an edible marijuana snack without his knowledge and was now sick.
The student reported they had eaten a rainbow-colored Rice Krispies treat given to them by another student. It was determined that student was selling the drugged edibles, which were purchased off the Instagram account "top2treats” and delivered to their home, a local park or in the neighborhood, and the student paid in cash.
According to charging documents, detectives determined Rice was the owner of the Instagram account, and found that he communicated with multiple other juveniles quoting prices, delivery fees and a variety of edible THC products available. Those included Fruity Pebbles bars, cookies, brownies and Cinnamon Toast Crunch bars. Police say that, once Instagram disabled "top2treats,” Rice continued his sales in a new account.
According to police, further evidence showed Rice knew he was selling drugs to children as young as 11 or 12 years old, and that the drug-laced bars were delivered to Ambler, Bala Cynwyd, Bridgeport, Cheltenham, King of Prussia, Norristown and Willow Grove among other Montgomery County areas, and that he solicited some of the youngsters to help him sell the items.
At the time of Rice’s arrest, officials say they recovered a "ghost gun,” materials used to make the THC-laced edibles, about 40 individually packaged homemade edibles and approximately 10 bags of individually packaged bags of marijuana in counterfeit commercial packaging.
"This defendant was targeting children as young as 11 years old to sell his drugs to, imbedding drugs in cereals and snack products that appeal to children. He then sold them where children are — on social media, specifically Instagram, where he would show the product as well as provide step-by-step instructions for how the kids could order the edibles and have them delivered,” said DA Steele.
"This defendant’s illegal drug trafficking business supplying drugs to children and encouraging children to be drug dealers is an egregious case,” Steele said Wednesday. "We will be seeking a long state prison sentence so that he will be in a place where he won’t be able to harm any more children.”
Charges were filed for the 19 sales and deliveries within the county, 18 of them to juveniles. Rice has been charged with solicitation of minors to traffic drugs, possession with intent to deliver, criminal use of a communications facility, possession of a controlled substance, and corruption of minors. He was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Marc Alfarano, who set bail at $95,000 cash. Rice was unable to post bail and was remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.
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