The water supply in a small Colorado town was found to be tainted with THC, the main chemical in marijuana, and there are signs someone may have deliberately put it there.
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Testing continues to determine the level of concentration, he said.
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 FBI, Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office are working together on the investigation.
More water supply results expected at 1 or 2pm after THC was detected in Hugo water well.
But others cast doubt on the dangers of THC-contaminated water or whether it’s even possible to spike tap water with marijuana.
“I think we owe it to our community, we owe it to our citizens to absolutely investigate this 100 percent”, Yowell said.
It’s unlikely that consuming pot-tainted water would cause lasting health effects, said Mark Salley, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health and Environment.
As a precaution, until more information becomes available, the department advised residents to consider other sources of water for drinking and cooking.
In a news conference held Thursday by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, officials revealed field tests on the town’s water supply that have tested positive for marijuana’s principal psychoactive compound THC, reports several news outlets.
THC does not dissolve easily in water, meaning if the test results were correct in showing TCH, there was a low chance anyone would experience the symptoms of a high.
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The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is warning Hugo residents not to drink the water, or cook with it or shower in it, according to KDVR. But details surrounding the scare were both technically and scientifically shaky: the manner in which tap water “tested positive” for THC initially was atypical, and labs concurred that such contamination was wildly implausible.
