A tiny Colorado town made national headlines this week after authorities told residents not to use the water, citing concerns that it had been contaminated with THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
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County officials conducted more tests.
Meanwhile, bottled water is on the way to Hugo.
There is just one problem: THC in not “water soluble”, which means that is can not be dissolved in water.
There have been no reports of anyone falling ill or being affected by the water so far, according to Susan Kelly, the county’s public health director.
The Lincoln County Sherriff’s Office said the public works department detected “evidence of THC” in the local water supply but residents did not exhibit any symptoms.
“Kinda bad when a little town like this, somebody dumped something in the damn water, especially something from marijuana”, Hugo resident Skip Tracy said.
Current studies from the National Institutes of Health and Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics have both pointed out THC’s extremely low solubility with water.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office announced on Friday that results will likely be released on Saturday, adding that the Colorado Bureau of Investigations is heading up the test on the city’s well-water system.
One of the well houses associated with the water supply showed signs of tampering, the sheriff’s office said. The police say, however, that other field tests have been negative.
Hugo prohibits marijuana cultivation, product manufacturing, testing facilities and retail marijuana stores, although those activities are legal elsewhere in the state, according to The AP.
The sheriff’s office says fresh water is on the way to Hugo.
“There is zero possibility that there’s anything like THC in the Hugo water”, Perrone told The Denver Post Thursday.
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Health effects from drinking pot-tainted water would depend on several factors, including how much THC was in the water, the amount consumed and how quickly it was consumed. The basic tests produced inconsistent results and it was made a decision to test the tap water.
