Every year, police warn parents to check their kids’ Halloween candy after they go trick-or-treating. Although these kinds of warnings cause some parents to worry about finding drugs, needles, or candy that has been tampered with, some experts say parents don’t need to worry too much about tainted candy. However, on October 25, 2025, an 8-year-old child in Pennsylvania really did bring home a bag of cocaine after going trick-or-treating.
When going through the 8-year-old’s bag of Halloween candy, his grandma found something unexpected: a small baggie with white powder inside. According to the Ingram Borough Police Department, law enforcement officers suspected that it might be cocaine, and preliminary tests confirmed their suspicions.
Police Chief Jack Doherty told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that it’s possible someone gave away the bag of cocaine by mistake. “It could have got picked up mistakenly off of somebody’s table and put in,” he said. “It could have been put in there by somebody that just wanted to cause a problem, you know, get everybody worried about it to do it for kicks.”
Some local residents seemed to agree that it was most likely an accident. Speaking to CBS Pittsburgh, resident Shelley Johnson said, “I don’t feel that this is nefarious. People that can afford that kind of drug aren’t passing that kind of a drug out.”
Still, police continued to urge families to check their children’s trick-or-treat bags. “We wanted the message put out not only for the people that were here trick or treating Saturday, to make sure their kids and their parents and whoever look in the bags that were taken home Saturday night into Sunday, but also upcoming trick or treaters,” Doherty said, per Action News 4.
The police chief also told CBS Pittsburgh that parents don’t need to worry too much about letting their kids go trick-or-treating as long as they check their bags afterward.
