Colorado's legal marijuana is three times stronger than it was a generation ago and is often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungus and bacteria, a startling chemical analysis of 600 samples has found.
Additionally, modern pot has very low levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, the compound that medical marijuana advocates say gives the drug its healing properties. In most samples, the CBD levels were so small they were undetectable.
Also alarming is the fact that people using marijuana for its reported medicinal properties usually have no way of knowing how much CBD is actually in their products.
Colorado only requires marijuana dispensaries to test and advertise the levels of THC - the compound in pot that gets user 'high.' CBD and contaminant levels are not tested.
Children who are given marijuana to control epilepsy can actually be worse off because they're being given strains of the drug with virtually no CBD and high levels of THC, which can trigger seizures,
said Dr. Andy LaFrate, a Ph.D. chemist. Dr. LaFrate says
modern pot is two to three times stronger than it was a generation ago.
Even more troubling were the 200 samples of marijuana concentrates - or pot extract - that LaFrate tested. These are used to make edibles and can contain up to 90percent THC.
Because they are concentrated doses, they can also contain very high levels of heavy metals and pesticides - as the THC level is dialed up, so are the levels of background contaminants.
The solvents used like alcohol and heptane to make the concentrates also contribute startling levels of contaminants, LaFrate warned.
We can be thankful for British newspapers like the
Daily Mail so that Colorado residents can learn about pot growing in Colorado!
No comments:
Post a Comment