Artefact Hunters Taken Ill after "Responsible" Metal detectorist feeds them 'Cannabis Cake' on Yorkshire Rally

High Melton near Sprotbrough, Doncaster, lies in the heart of an extensive Iron Age and Roman crop mark landscape of South Yorkshire - ploughing has reduced the topsoil to a thin superficial layer so any detecting will go straight into features and archaeological deposits. As, presumably, the clowns that organised a 'Coil to the Soil' commercial Bank Holiday Weekend artefact hunting rally there know only too well. But it did not end well for some of the participants who had driven to the rally from across the country. Pictures posted on social media showed several ambulances parked in a field near to a white marquee (BBC, 'Metal detectorists taken ill eating 'cannabis cakes' in High Melton' 27th August 2019)

A group of metal detectorists had to go to hospital after unknowingly eating cakes apparently spiked with cannabis in a village called High Melton. Some 13 men and women fell ill at the rally in Doncaster on Saturday night. A detectorist spokesman said: "People could have died. It was lucky that no children or people on medication with serious health problems ate the cake." A 48-year-old woman from County Durham was arrested and later released on bail.

I presume alcohol was involved, rule number one, don't drink with space cakes.

Here's a video 'Up to 20 metal detectorists rushed to hospital on a weekend rally'  and from the comments we learn that the (as yet unnamed) 48 year old woman had made the cake for somebody else: 

The Man With The Hat Published on 27 Aug 2019
Latest news overnight. The cake was meant as a joke 50th birthday cake. The recipient knew what it was but shared it out to people without their knowledge or consent.

Julian Evan-Hart, editor of Treasure Hunting Magazine, said it was an irresponsible, poorly thought-through joke but that the cakes were homemade, and had not been sold. "This isn't a poor reflection on our hobby, the dig organisers or anyone else involved the planning of the event. It's just a case of random lunacy ". Not a poor reflection on "responsible detectorists' he means? How does one define "responsible" behaviour in this milieu? Obviously rather loosely. More than a dozen people at the detectorist event were said to have "ingested" the substance, which is a class B drug in the UK.

A large fleet of medical staff were called to the scene. They included eight ambulances, a rapid response vehicle, two doctors, two clinical supervisors and a Hazardous Area Response Team. Yorkshire Ambulance Service said two people were treated on the spot. It said: "Yorkshire Ambulance Service received an emergency call just before 18:30 BST on Saturday to reports of a number of people feeling unwell at a national metal detecting event... "They had become unwell after ingesting an unknown substance."

The 13 people admitted to hospital, who came from across the country, were later discharged. But there are artefact hunters that think this is hilarious, here's a Die Untergang meme that immediately appeared on line that evening:

Coil To The Soil Incident Control Room This is a comedy meme of an incident recently at a metal detecting rally and any depicted characters are pure fantasy and no unicorns was hurt in its production 

Which is not to say that a huge amount of archaeological damage was not done during this rally. Was the FLO in attendance and... did they get some of the cake?