DENVER, April 23 (Reuters) - A Colorado woman has been arrested for giving a marijuana-laced brownie to her teenage son who ate the confection and suffered serious injuries when he later jumped out of a third-story apartment window, police said on Thursday.
Julieane Jablonski, 38, was booked on suspicion of providing marijuana to a minor and felony tampering with a witness, the Fort Collins Police Department said in a statement.
Jablonski gave the pot brownie on April 14 to her 19-year-old son, Austin Essig, who then started acting strangely with witnesses saying he ran toward the window and jumped out "without hesitation," police said.
Police did not describe the exact injuries Essig suffered in the three-story fall, but said he was seriously hurt.
Colorado voters in 2012 sanctioned recreational use of marijuana, but only for those aged 21 and older. Voters in three other states and the District of Columbia have done the same, but pot remains illegal under federal law.
Jablonski could not be reached for comment.
She appeared in court briefly on Thursday and the Larimer County District Attorney's Office has formal charges pending against her, the Fort Collins Coloradoan reported on its website, citing court records.
Since Essig is over 18, Jablonski normally would have simply been given a misdemeanor citation, but the witness tampering charge is a felony that prompted her arrest, Fort Collins Deputy Police Chief Cory Christensen said.
"She allegedly attempted to get other witnesses to change their stories," Christensen said.
Jablonski was arrested on Wednesday, according to a police booking report.
It was the latest of several incidents of pot users harming themselves that authorities in Colorado have confronted since retail sales of the drug began there last year.
In March 2014, college student Levi Thamba Pongi of the Republic of Congo leaped to his death from a Denver hotel after consuming six times the recommended amount of marijuana cookies, with the Denver medical examiner's office listing "marijuana intoxication" as a contributing factor in his death.
Last month, 22-year-old Luke Gregory Goodman shot himself to death in a Colorado ski resort town after witnesses said he ate a large amount of pot candies, the Summit County coroner said. (Reporting by Keith Coffman; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Cooney)
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