A bantam Colorado townmade national headlinesthis calendar week after authorities state resident not to use the water , citing concerns that it had been contaminate with THC , the main psychotropic ingredient in marijuana .
On Wednesday , the 700 - strong town of Hugo , situate some 100 land mile from Denver in eastern Colorado , advised residents not to drink , bathe , or cook with the tap water , after multiple field tests descend back irrefutable for THC . The results are fishy , to say the least , and more elaborate laboratory analysis are underway to verify the nature of the contaminant .
consort to theDenver Post , it was a Hugo - base company that first raised the alarm . After getting “ inconsistent ” termination when using a THC field of view test ( not unlike a gestation mental test ) on its employees , the company decided to prove the body of water and was surprised to see it get back confirming . This prompted an probe by the county , which perform ten arena tests with two different kit , yielding six positive resultant .
Eventually , the presumptively pollute sampling were set apart to a single well , which “ register signs of forced entry . ” It was at this point that the metropolis issued a public warning about the water supply .
The write up promote a few blood-red flags . For one , it is n’t clear-cut why anybody would attempt to pollute a minor Ithiel Town ’s water system supply with THC . As the Denver Post point out , this is n’t a place that ’s see a fierce debate over marijuana use , although commercial growing is banned in the surrounding Lincoln county . Moreover , it ’s highly unlikely that the town ’s water provision could have been contaminate with THC — at least , in concentration high-pitched enough to bring on even the slightest buzz .
That ’s because , as any college survivor will sleep with , THC is highly insoluble in water . There ’s a intellect pot is bake into cookie and brownies , but nobody ’s tap the THC - infuse get-up-and-go drink food market : you require a lot of butter or oil to get this hooey into solution .
“ It would take more ware than any of us could yield to contaminate a city water supply to the extent that hoi polloi would sustain any effects , ” Lincoln county ’s wellness officeholder John Fox said in a statement .
More probable than some extremely motivated lapidator send packing an tremendous chunk of alteration to get a townspeople blaze out is that the interpretation are false positives stimulate by some other contaminant , or that the domain test kits themselves are unreliable .
deep laboratory tests could be complete by later today .
Update , July 23 , 2:27 pm EDT : concord to theAssociated Press , run concluded that there was n’t any evidence of the marijuana chemical in the water , and the warning has been canceled .
The sheriff ’s office staff will conduct a criminal probe into the suspected meddling in the residential district — since there was still grounds of forced entry — but the matter has been sprain over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation .
“ There never was THC in our water supplying . We did get multiple exam showing the possibility of THC , but sovereign trial take by different the great unwashed at different time and place showed no grounds of THC , ” said sheriff ’s Capt . Michael Yowell .
No illnesses have been reported .
[ NPR , Denver Post ]
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