What We Know About Candy Microdosing Illnesses As Death Investigation Underway

A person may have died after eating Diamond Shruumz microdose gummies, which were recalled last week due to a series of serious illnesses involving seizures, intubation and intensive care stays.

According to an update from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released this week, the number of cases continues to rise across the country. To date, 48 people in 24 states have become ill after consuming the candy, which includes candy bars, gummies and candy cones sold online and at retail outlets, such as tobacco and vape shops. Of the 48 people who became ill, 46 were sick enough to seek medical attention and 27 were hospitalized.

At this time, the death mentioned in the FDA’s latest update is only “potentially linked” to the candy and is still under investigation. No further information is available at this time.

But in an interview with Ars, medical toxicologist Michael Moss wasn’t surprised that the candy could have turned deadly. Moss, who is the medical director of the Utah Poison Control Center, treated one of the first people whose case was reported.

An early case

The person became ill in Nevada and was transferred to a hospital in Utah, where Moss was part of his care team. After he was released from intensive care, Moss sat down with him and tried to piece together what had happened. According to Moss, the person had purchased a birthday cake-flavored candy bar from a local store. The bars are marketed as “microdose” candy, suggesting they contain psychedelic compounds, but the exact ingredients and dosages are not listed.

Although the man told Moss he had used psychedelics before, these were only real mushrooms. This was the first time he had ever eaten such a bar. And the bar’s packaging contained only vague instructions about how much to ingest at one time to achieve certain effects. For example, consuming nine or more squares of the bar was described with a picture of a rainbow-colored eye.

“What does that dose mean? And how many milligrams of what is that? Nobody knows,” Moss said. “So he decided, ‘That’s a candy bar.’ So why not just eat the candy bar? That’s a pretty reasonable thing to do.”

But within minutes of eating the bar, the person felt nauseous, very dizzy, and tired. He went to lie down and doesn’t remember much after that. Luckily, a family member came home a short time later and found him. They saw that he had vomited and was possibly aspirating or choking. By the time the paramedics arrived, he was having a seizure. He had another one in the emergency room. Doctors gave him anti-seizure medication and a breathing tube and put him on a ventilator before transferring him to a hospital in Utah.