Smoke and Mirrors: How Intoxicating Hemp Seeped Into the First Recreational Marijuana Market in the Country
Unelected doesn't mean harmless.
The owner of a marijuana testing lab called a top regulator in Colorado on his cellphone in April 2024 with an urgent situation.
“We’ve got something that’s kind of a big deal,” he remembers saying.
During a routine test of a manufacturer’s products, Bona Fides Laboratory in Denver had found a toxic chemical in a popular brand of marijuana vapes sold at dispensaries in Colorado. The chemical, methylene chloride, is prohibited by Colorado’s marijuana regulators and for most uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because it can cause liver and lung cancer and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems. The owner felt he had a duty to call immediately rather than just submit a report through the state’s online system.
As state regulators investigated, they discovered a second problem: The product wasn’t derived from marijuana at all. It came from hemp, a close cousin of marijuana that is much cheaper to produce and that Colorado had banned companies from using to make intoxicating products for sale in the state.
Congress had legalized hemp in 2018 for other uses, such as clothing and rope, and because people believe its high levels of the nonintoxicating compound CBD can help them with seizures, pain and sleep. Hemp has extremely low levels of THC, the psychoactive compound found in marijuana that gets people high. And federal lawmakers thought allowing it would support farmers and rural jobs without the risks posed by marijuana.
But hemp manufacturers quickly figured out how to convert CBD into THC through a process that involves toxic solvents, creating products that sometimes contain harmful chemicals and that can be more potent than products made from marijuana.
Colorado was one of the first states to ban intoxicating hemp products made by chemical processing, initially with regulatory advisories and then with legislation in 2023. In doing so, lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis boasted that Colorado — which had created the first regulated recreational marijuana market in the nation — was once again a model for how to smartly regulate cannabis, generating billions of dollars in tax revenue while keeping consumers safe.
But despite the ban, the legislature and regulators failed to adopt many critical regulations that other states have employed to keep hemp products off the shelves.
Unlike some other states, Colorado’s lab testing system operates largely on an honor code, with marijuana manufacturers free to choose the samples they send for analysis. Colorado won’t require labs to test those products for the toxic chemicals used to convert hemp to THC until this summer. The state is also now scrambling to set up its own testing program to randomly purchase products from dispensaries to verify safety.
The 2023 law also had an exception that allowed registered hemp companies to continue manufacturing intoxicating hemp products, but only for sale outside the state. Thuy Vu, a compliance consultant who once spearheaded the city of Denver’s marijuana manufacturing inspection regimen, warned lawmakers at the time that the carve-out “was an open invitation for bad actors” that would result in “misbranded products” …
Unelected doesn't mean harmless.
The owner of a marijuana testing lab called a top regulator in Colorado on his cellphone in April 2024 with an urgent situation.
“We’ve got something that’s kind of a big deal,” he remembers saying.
During a routine test of a manufacturer’s products, Bona Fides Laboratory in Denver had found a toxic chemical in a popular brand of marijuana vapes sold at dispensaries in Colorado. The chemical, methylene chloride, is prohibited by Colorado’s marijuana regulators and for most uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because it can cause liver and lung cancer and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems. The owner felt he had a duty to call immediately rather than just submit a report through the state’s online system.
As state regulators investigated, they discovered a second problem: The product wasn’t derived from marijuana at all. It came from hemp, a close cousin of marijuana that is much cheaper to produce and that Colorado had banned companies from using to make intoxicating products for sale in the state.
Congress had legalized hemp in 2018 for other uses, such as clothing and rope, and because people believe its high levels of the nonintoxicating compound CBD can help them with seizures, pain and sleep. Hemp has extremely low levels of THC, the psychoactive compound found in marijuana that gets people high. And federal lawmakers thought allowing it would support farmers and rural jobs without the risks posed by marijuana.
But hemp manufacturers quickly figured out how to convert CBD into THC through a process that involves toxic solvents, creating products that sometimes contain harmful chemicals and that can be more potent than products made from marijuana.
Colorado was one of the first states to ban intoxicating hemp products made by chemical processing, initially with regulatory advisories and then with legislation in 2023. In doing so, lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis boasted that Colorado — which had created the first regulated recreational marijuana market in the nation — was once again a model for how to smartly regulate cannabis, generating billions of dollars in tax revenue while keeping consumers safe.
But despite the ban, the legislature and regulators failed to adopt many critical regulations that other states have employed to keep hemp products off the shelves.
Unlike some other states, Colorado’s lab testing system operates largely on an honor code, with marijuana manufacturers free to choose the samples they send for analysis. Colorado won’t require labs to test those products for the toxic chemicals used to convert hemp to THC until this summer. The state is also now scrambling to set up its own testing program to randomly purchase products from dispensaries to verify safety.
The 2023 law also had an exception that allowed registered hemp companies to continue manufacturing intoxicating hemp products, but only for sale outside the state. Thuy Vu, a compliance consultant who once spearheaded the city of Denver’s marijuana manufacturing inspection regimen, warned lawmakers at the time that the carve-out “was an open invitation for bad actors” that would result in “misbranded products” …
Smoke and Mirrors: How Intoxicating Hemp Seeped Into the First Recreational Marijuana Market in the Country
Unelected doesn't mean harmless.
The owner of a marijuana testing lab called a top regulator in Colorado on his cellphone in April 2024 with an urgent situation.
“We’ve got something that’s kind of a big deal,” he remembers saying.
During a routine test of a manufacturer’s products, Bona Fides Laboratory in Denver had found a toxic chemical in a popular brand of marijuana vapes sold at dispensaries in Colorado. The chemical, methylene chloride, is prohibited by Colorado’s marijuana regulators and for most uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because it can cause liver and lung cancer and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems. The owner felt he had a duty to call immediately rather than just submit a report through the state’s online system.
As state regulators investigated, they discovered a second problem: The product wasn’t derived from marijuana at all. It came from hemp, a close cousin of marijuana that is much cheaper to produce and that Colorado had banned companies from using to make intoxicating products for sale in the state.
Congress had legalized hemp in 2018 for other uses, such as clothing and rope, and because people believe its high levels of the nonintoxicating compound CBD can help them with seizures, pain and sleep. Hemp has extremely low levels of THC, the psychoactive compound found in marijuana that gets people high. And federal lawmakers thought allowing it would support farmers and rural jobs without the risks posed by marijuana.
But hemp manufacturers quickly figured out how to convert CBD into THC through a process that involves toxic solvents, creating products that sometimes contain harmful chemicals and that can be more potent than products made from marijuana.
Colorado was one of the first states to ban intoxicating hemp products made by chemical processing, initially with regulatory advisories and then with legislation in 2023. In doing so, lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis boasted that Colorado — which had created the first regulated recreational marijuana market in the nation — was once again a model for how to smartly regulate cannabis, generating billions of dollars in tax revenue while keeping consumers safe.
But despite the ban, the legislature and regulators failed to adopt many critical regulations that other states have employed to keep hemp products off the shelves.
Unlike some other states, Colorado’s lab testing system operates largely on an honor code, with marijuana manufacturers free to choose the samples they send for analysis. Colorado won’t require labs to test those products for the toxic chemicals used to convert hemp to THC until this summer. The state is also now scrambling to set up its own testing program to randomly purchase products from dispensaries to verify safety.
The 2023 law also had an exception that allowed registered hemp companies to continue manufacturing intoxicating hemp products, but only for sale outside the state. Thuy Vu, a compliance consultant who once spearheaded the city of Denver’s marijuana manufacturing inspection regimen, warned lawmakers at the time that the carve-out “was an open invitation for bad actors” that would result in “misbranded products” …
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