STATESVILLE, N.C. --The Iredell County Sheriff's Office has determined that candy eaten by a West Iredell Middle School student last Friday had been laced with drugs.
The student who ate the candy, 13-year old Casey Sidden, had to be treated at a hospital after he began feeling sick.
Today was the first day he felt well enough to go back to school.
"I feel great knowing that I am alright and that I am not going to die," Sidden said with his mother sitting next to him on the couch in their home.
Stacy Sidden called the Sheriff's Department that had the candy tested in their lab.
Investigators found that it was a lollipop with a powder to dip the candy into and that that powder contained traces of the pain killer hydrocodone, bath salts and acetaminophen.
"I'm outraged. Totally outraged," said Stacy Sidden.
She said she was furious when the school sent home a letter to parents saying that there were stories and rumors floating around about drug-laced candy but that there was "nothing to substantiate any of them."
After the Sheriff's Department's findings were made public, a new letter went home to parents saying that indeed a student, "had tested positive for a drug."
"If my child wouldn't have told me he had eaten that candy, I would have been burying him," Stacy Sidden said.
Investigators say a friend of Casey brought the candy to school after having been given it by someone who had gone to a party off school grounds.
Captain Darren Campbell of the Sheriff's Office said there was no reason to believe drugs were being sold on school grounds.
"I don't believe the boy that actually brought it to the school and shared it with other students even knew and we don't have reason to believe that he knew what he was bringing," Campbell said.
The Iredell County School Department is inviting parents to a forum next Tuesday night at West Iredell County High School to discuss illegal drugs and students.
