Family suffer cannabis poisoning after accidentally cooking Christmas dinner with grandma’s hemp oil

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

An entire family of 14 people in a small Polish village suffered suspected cannabis poisoning after accidentally cooking their Christmas meal using hemp oil that their late grandmother had mixed with olive oil and left in the fridge.

The affected individuals, aged 3 to 78, have now all been discharged from hospital. Health authorities will further examine the oil, which has been confiscated.

Emergency services were initially called to the household in Mroczki-Stylongi, a village of just 27 people in eastern Poland, on Christmas Eve after the family reported symptoms consistent with suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.

However, fire brigade checks ruled out such a threat, and all 14 family members – four children and ten adults – were taken to local hospitals for testing.

The following day, police disclosed that traces of THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis, had been detected in the patients’ systems. Recreational cannabis use is illegal in Poland, punishable by three years in prison. Medical cannabis has been legal for prescribed medical use since 2018.

A police search of the home, assisted by a sniffer dog trained to detect narcotics, yielded no illegal substances. However, the officers did find bottles containing hemp oil, including one in which it was mixed with olive oil.

“Everything indicates that the THC-containing oil came from a legitimate source, as the vials we secured were wrapped in prescriptions,” local police spokesman Tomasz Krupa told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Friday.

“This cooking oil, probably by complete and unfortunate coincidence, was used in the preparation of Christmas Eve dishes, such as frying,” he added.

Later that day, a member of the family, named only as Wiesław, confirmed in an interview with news website Onet that this is indeed what had happened.

He explained that, while trying to fit a Christmas cake into the bottom shelf of the fridge, his relatives had taken out a bottle of what they thought was olive oil. Subsequently, his daughter and two daughters-in-law used it for frying fish and other Christmas dishes.

However, the bottle in fact contained hemp oil, which Wiesław’s late wife, a cancer victim, had been legally prescribed and had mixed with olive oil. She had used the mixture to rub on her skin, which “relieved the unbearable pain”, said Wiesław. She died in June this year aged 56.

Wiesław explained that, shortly after eating Christmas dinner, his family started feeling faint and dizzy. After being taken to hospital, their stomachs were pumped and the adults were able to return home a few hours later while the children were kept longer for observation.

“It really was just an unfortunate mistake,” insisted Wiesław. “It was not a ‘high Christmas’ as someone put it on the internet. It ended with a scare but fortunately all my loved ones are safe and sound.”

The use of medical cannabis in Poland has surged in recent years, with prescriptions rising from 2,909 in 2019 to 276,807 in 2023, reports health news service Rynek Zdrowia.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Nataliya Vaitkevich/Pexels

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.