Popular gummy candy brand Haribo has issued a recall after a handful of customers in the Netherlands reported health issues after eating Haribo Happy Cola.
When their young children became sick after eating the gummies, two parents brought the bag to local police, reports food website Delish. Authorities said that testing revealed the gummies contained cannabis. While Happy Cola gummies come in a variety of sizes, only the 1-kg bags with a use-by date of January 2026 and the production code L341-4002307906 are affected in the recall.
Only a limited number of cases were contaminated but, in an abundance of caution, Haribo pulled all of the products from shelves in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The sweets have also been pulled from the shelves in Hong Kong and the island of Taiwan has suspended imports.
The company is also offering a full refund for all affected bags that are returned. “The safety of our consumers is our highest priority, and Haribo takes this incident very seriously,” the company stated.
In the United States, where many states have legalised marijuana, fans of the gummy candy seemed more interested than concerned. “I would 100% pay more for those,” one commented on Delish’s Instagram post on the recall. “You say contaminated. I say blessed,” quipped another, while one said simply, “Dream collab.”
[See more: Brazilian Supreme Court decriminalises personal use of marijuana]
However, a recent study found that any form of long-term cannabis use – including gummies – puts users at greater risk of heart disease. Researchers at the University of California (UC) San Francisco studied 55 people, aged 18 to 50, who were “outwardly healthy” and belonged to one of three groups: those who regularly smoked marijuana, those who regularly ate edibles containing the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and those who didn’t use cannabis at all.
Those in the two user categories had been consuming the substance at least three times a week for at least a year. On average, smokers tended to have been regular users for twice as long (10 years) as those who consumed edibles (five years).
Despite that variation in duration of use, all cannabis users were found to have decreased vascular function compared to their non-user counterparts, with roughly half as much blood vessel function. Decreased vascular function, the study authors note, is linked to a higher risk of heart attack, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular conditions.
Edibles users did avoid the changes in blood serum, which harms cells lining blood and lymphatic vessels, that appeared in smokers.
Dr Bradley Serwer, a Maryland-based cardiologist and chief medical officer at VitalSolution who was not involved in the study, reminded Fox News that there are therapeutic uses for the substance, but the findings add to a growing body of evidence that chronic use of cannabis, no matter the form, can have serious negative health consequences.
