Four middle school students were hospitalized Tuesday after ingesting edibles at the Dr. William W. Henderson Inclusion School, according to Boston police.
Police said they responded to the K-12 facility around noon for a report that four students had ingested edibles. School officials said, after acknowledging some confusion about how many students were affected, that the students ate what appeared to be cannabis-infused chocolates.
The students were taken to a local hospital for evaluation. Their conditions were not immediately known.
The incident occurred at the school's Upper Campus, located at 18 Croftland Avenue in Dorchester, police said.
Head of School Stephanie Sibley said in a letter to families Tuesday that school staff immediately notified school safety services and Boston police of the incident.
"The families of all students involved were immediately notified and the students were seen by the school nurse. Boston EMS was also notified of the incident, and the students wee taken to a local hospital for further medical care," Sibley wrote.
She said an investigation into the incident is "ongoing."
This is the second recent incident at the Henderson School involving edibles, and the third in Boston schools. A student at the Tobin School in Roxbury was brought to a hospital on March 6, and another incident March 21 at the Henderson Upper School saw three students hospitalized as a precaution.
Those incidents prompted community leaders to call on parents to talk to their children about the dangers of edibles.
"We avoided a potentially more serious situation here," Mayor Michelle Wu said at the time. "We need this to be a whole-community conversation across not just the students, but everyone who who's involved in in our young people's lives."
Recreational marijuana is legal for adults 21 and over in the state, but it is illegal for anyone to have the drug on school grounds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the amount of THC is hard to measure in edibles and can leave many people caught off-guard by strong and long-lasting effects.
