PADUCAH — Most people don’t inspect the ingredients before eating a candy bar, but Tina Baker said splitting a chocolate bar with a friend on a Jeep trip to Kentucky Lake ended with a terrifying trip to the emergency room.
The bar in question — from a brand called Diamond Shruumz — features psychedelic artwork, and is widely available at local gas stations, vape shops, and liquor stores, as well as online stores. The bars are only sold to customers 21 and older, but that’s not a legal requirement.
The bars’ packaging indicate they’re not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Tina Baker was traveling with a friend and overdosed on a chocolate bar she didn’t even realize you could overdose on. She was transported to the Emergency Room alongside her friend who was hospitalized for four days and had to undergo a blood transfusion. She’s now fully recovered, but doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else. Photo taken June 14, 2024.
At least 12 people nationwide have sought medical care after consuming Diamond Shruumz bars, according to the FDA.
That organization, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and America’s Poison Centers, launched an investigation of the Diamond Shruumz brand on June 7. The FDA recommended against eating, selling, or serving any flavor of the chocolate bars, cones, or gummies produced by the company.
Baker, a nurse, said she doesn’t take drugs, and that there was no alcohol in her system when she and her friend split the chocolate bar. Leaving Paducah, they made it as far as Kentucky Dam, near Gilbertsville.
Tina Baker holds the package she pulled out of the trash that contained the candy bar she said sent her friend and herself to the ER. Photo taken June 14, 2024.
She remembered seeing her friend “nodding out” in the passenger seat, and said it looked like she was starting to have a seizure.
Baker said pulling off the road at that point probably saved her life.
“There’s no telling what could have happened,” Baker said. “I could have killed someone else. I could have wrecked the Jeep and both of us be killed… By the grace of God, you know, the Lord had me pull over.”
The Diamond Shruumz bars advertise themselves as “all-natural” and are part of a burgeoning trend of nootropics, which are products that claim to enhance cognitive function, whether via improved memory, focus, or mood.
Those products range from caffeine to fish oil to a range of mushroom-based products.
The Diamond Shruumz chocolate bars retail for $25 each. Though the bars advertise the chocolate as a “microdose,” which refers to the act of taking a small amount of a psychedelic, these aren’t magic mushrooms, and don’t contain the psychoactive ingredient psilocybin.
Instead, the company’s website describes the bars as including a proprietary blend of natural ingredients. Those include Lion’s Mane, Reishi, and Chaga mushrooms.
The page recommends eating one to two pieces to start, waiting 30 to 45 minutes, or even up to an hour before eating more to reach the desired effect.
Baker said she thought they were just sharing a fancy chocolate bar. They knew that there were mushrooms in it, but she didn’t think there was anything in there that could have such an intense impact.
“One minute I was there, and one minute I wasn’t,” Baker said.
At the overlook on the edge of Kentucky Lake, Baker said her friend was unresponsive, started to foam at the mouth, and even though Baker’s medical training meant that she knew how to respond to a seizure, she said she could not respond properly.
Walking around the car to check on her friend, within a minute or a minute and a half, Baker said she needed to sit down, and fell back into the driver’s seat.
The next thing she knew, a police officer and her daughter were standing over her.
First responders intubated her friend on the side of the road.
Baker was transported to the hospital by her daughter. Her passenger was transported via ambulance to Marshall County where she received a blood transfusion and was held for four days, according to Baker.
Baker said a good Samaritan saved their lives by calling Marshall County Police for a welfare check. She wanted to thank that person, even though they never met. She credited the Life360 app on her phone for sending her location to her daughter.
“I thank that lady. I don’t even know who she is, but if she’s [reading] this, thank you,” Baker said. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Because you saved our lives.”
Even after they reached the hospital, Baker said the bars presented a unique challenge. No one knew what they had eaten, and standard drug screenings weren’t providing answers.
“Nothing showed up but our regular medicines,” said Baker. “They didn’t know if we had gotten somehow into fentanyl.”
Baker said hospital staff administered Narcan to both of them, with no improvement, and fentanyl was not in their systems.
Jesse McCord is a nurse educator at Baptist Health Paducah, and said the ingredients listed for the bars do not raise any red flags. Instead, he said the blend of ingredients looks closer to a supplement.
In fact, some toxicology experts believe that Diamond Shruumz products are likely categorized as dietary supplements.
The FDA doesn’t review supplements for effectiveness before they enter the market.
If it contains an ingredient that was not marketed in the U.S. before October of 1994, then the manufacturer and distributors are responsible for submitting data on safety before it goes to market.
WPSD Local 6 reached out to Diamond Shruumz and got a voicemail. The company has not returned reporters’ requests for comment.
Baker warned, even though the bars are only available to adults 21 and older, the risks outweigh the potential high for people.
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