URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n496/a08.html
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Sat, 23 Jul 2016
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company
Contact:
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Jack Healy
A COLORADO TOWN’S WATER TESTS POSITIVE FOR MARIJUANA
DENVER – There are no marijuana dispensaries or greenhouses in the tiny railroad town of Hugo, where Theodore Roosevelt once ate breakfast with the local cowboys. But this week, Hugo’s 740 residents were told to stop drinking the water after the town’s water supply tested positive for THC, the psychoactive chemical in Colorado’s most famous cash crop.
The trouble started when a local company trying to calibrate its employee drug tests pulled a positive reading from Hugo’s tap water. The town’s Public Works Department investigated and found signs of tampering and “forced entry” at one of the wells that supply the town’s drinking water, a spokesman for the Lincoln County sheriff told reporters. The town sealed off the well that seemed to be the source of the tainted water.
No one has reported feeling sick or intoxicated from drinking the water, though people around the high-plains town joked on Friday that perhaps they should be drinking more water. On the town’s Facebook community page, Hugo Happenings, people joked about Hugo’s new “healing waters,” and said that its ice cubes could be the tiny town’s answer to marijuana brownies.
“What a way to get our town on the news,” said Patsie Smith, a former mayor, who on Friday took a shower and made her morning coffee as usual and felt completely normal.
With people urged not to drink from the tap, the town had handed out 2,500 bottles of water by midday Friday, and closed the swimming pool for the day despite temperatures heading toward 95 degrees. Jean’s Family Kitchen was closed, and managers at local markets said sales of bottled water had been brisk.
On Friday, investigators with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation took water samples back to the agency’s lab in suburban Denver to run more sophisticated tests. After the initial positive result, county officials ran 10 field tests on the town’s water, six of which were positive for THC. Only one of five municipal wells had tested positive for THC.
In Hugo, residents were still bathing, watering their lawns and doing the dishes with the water. Officials said it would take about 48 hours for all of the potentially THC-laced water to be flushed from the water system.
Ms. Smith said most people were taking it in stride, even though she thought it unnecessary to close down the pool.
“It’s pretty much a running joke,” she said. “I’m personally afraid it’s an overreaction, but better safe than sorry.”
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom