While the THC-tainted water scare in Hugo, CO, created waves across national and international news last week, it also underlined how much needs to be done to remove misconceptions about marijuana. Marijuana legalization is spreading across the country. It is now available in 25 states, plus the District of Columbia, under state-regulated medical and/or recreational programs. Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri will also vote on medical marijuana ballot measures this November, along with 5 states voting whether to allow adult-use, recreational marijuana. It may take time to be available everywhere, but the country is well past the tipping point.
While legalization is a major step, normalization is a bigger hurdle. The discussion about, and comfort with, marijuana will require continuous efforts to educate, inform, and dispel myths, stereotypes, factless claims, and baseless stigma.
When we originally carried the report about the town’s THC-tainted water in last week’s WEEKLY BUZZ, we re-wrote the headline into a question (“Colorado Town at Risk of Getting High on its Own Supply?”) based upon this unprecedented claim. But simply questioning the news report fell short of educating, informing, and dispelling myths, and for that we apologize to our readers.
Here are the facts about the false THC-tainted water scare:
The initial “discovery” of THC in water samples was the result of tests conducted using a rapid marijuana testing kit (field test). An employee of the Lincoln County Human Services department was given a drug test that produced a (false) positive result. Uncertain about the accuracy of the results, the department then conducted field tests on the town’s water for comparison, but this also produced a (false) positive result. They tested the town water ten times, and six tests returned (false) positive results, before alerting the Sheriff about the possibility of THC contamination.
But a lab test later conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation did not find any traces of THC in the water supply.
Denver’s ABC News 7 consulted with Jenna Lee Bennet, co-owner of Convenient Compliance Colorado, which conducts mobile drug and alcohol testing, who spoke about the unreliability of field drug tests versus tests conducted by a lab: “Up to 30 to 35 percent of field tests can produce a false-positive result, versus one to five percent in laboratory testing”.
So after all the media buzz, cancelled football practices, closed swimming pools and restaurants, residents of the town of Hugo can again feel confident their water supply isn’t THC-on-tap. Which may be disappointing to Hugo’s marijuana patients and consumers, who won’t have any luck finding it locally: ironically, Hugo is a “dry” town, with a ban on stores and grow operations.
