Sac Teen Arrested After Offering Pills

A South Hill eighth-grader was arrested at school Wednesday on charges that three girls became ill when they swallowed red pills he said were candy.

The students, all eighth-graders at Sacajawea Middle School, were at a bus stop at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday when the boy offered the girls the pills, said Hugh Davis, a Spokane School District 81 spokesman.

All three were sent home later that day after being treated at area emergency rooms for lethargy and dizziness, Davis said. “The girls are all in fine shape,” he said.

Dick Cottam, a Spokane Police Department spokesman, said the boy apparently gave the girls a drug called tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the active ingredient in marijuana.

Cottam said parents of the girls learned what the ingredient was from doctors.

“We don’t know where he got it,” Davis said.

The boy was arrested about noon Wednesday at the school on charges of second-degree assault and delivery of a controlled substance, police said.

He was booked into the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center.

In addition, school district officials suspended the boy on an emergency basis as their own investigation continues, Davis said.

The girls told police the boy offered them “candy” at the bus stop.

One girl who took four of the pills became dizzy about a half-hour later at school, went to the health room and then was treated at an emergency clinic. The other two girls suffered lethargy and became light-headed, Davis said. They were treated at Deaconess Medical Center.