About 50 guests who attended a wedding ceremony in Seminole County of Florida have been sickened after consuming dinner laced with marijuana. The unsuspecting wedding guests ate meatballs, bread dipped in olive oil and herbs, tortellini, and Caesar salad among others. Most of them started feeling funny after consuming the meal and some were subsequently hospitalized.
According to Detective Daniel Anderson, Andrew and Danya Svoboda had hired, Joycelyn Bryant, to prepare the wedding meals. But bride Danya and Joycelyn obviously had a trick up their sleeves when they conspired to lace the food with marijuana. Given the fright experienced by some guests, some said they thought they were going to die when their hearts started racing wildly.
Danya and Joycelyn were arrested and charged with food tampering and delivery of marijuana as well as negligence. The first two offenses were felonies and the last one was a misdemeanor. Andrew Svoboda was not arrested. It is unknown if the two women have lawyers to represent them after being charged at the 18th Judicial Circuit Court in Seminole County.
Although the medical and recreational use of cannabis is legalized in several US states, cases of poisoning people with the substance remain rife in the country. Earlier this year, three children in Virginia were hospitalized after eating goldfish crackers given to them at their daycare center – the crackers were lacking with marijuana. And early April, 14 students in New Mexico were treated after they ate THC gummies one of them brought to school.
For the Svoboda wedding guests, all the invitees said they did not know that their food was laced with marijuana. One of the guests, Miranda Cady, said she saw Joycelyn placing a green substance at the bottom of a plate and then pouring olive oil, which many ate with bread; she said she thought it was some Italian herb when she saw the caterer do it.
When she became very sick and afraid of dying, Cady said she went to her car to vomit and to sleep; and thinking she might not wake up, she sent a text message to herself to narrate what happened so that police detectives could know what transpired. And on summoning the courage to ask Joycelyn what she put on the plate thereafter, the caterer responded that it was cannabis and said it in a way to signify she did the guests a big favor.
A neighbor to the Svobodas, Rachel Penn, said she sent a text from her hospital bed to Danya to ask what they put in her food. She said the bride responded with a message saying, “Uggg, we have no idea, let us know if you need help with anything.”