A WORKER at a Queensland employment agency allegedly took a tray of marijuana-laced muffins to a farewell party for a colleague, who had accepted a redundancy, last week - with unfortunate results.
The 42-year-old woman, who had also taken a voluntary redundancy, allegedly took the home-baked treats to the office morning tea last Wednesday at the Noosa branch of Employment Services Queensland.
Within hours of the morning tea for the company's departing site manager, the woman's co-workers started falling ill.
One woman, who collapsed and fell unconscious, was taken by ambulance to hospital. Another woman rushed to see her GP, suffering from nausea.
Employment Services Queensland general manager Chris Hamilton said a number of staff members became unwell after eating the muffins.
''They progressively became more unwell over a period of hours,'' Mr Hamilton said.
''Obviously the [muffins] were nice enough that people had a couple each. The lady who was hospitalised had two, I believe, so she probably ingested enough substance to make her quite unwell.''
Mr Hamilton said office morning teas would continue at the agency despite the concerning incident. ''You could be very risk-averse about this, but … the likelihood of something occurring like this in the future it's very, very low,'' he said.
The 42-year-old woman has been charged with one count of supplying and possessing a dangerous drug.
BRISBANE TIMES
