Missouri health officials investigate complaint of moldy medical marijuana product
A complaint of a medical marijuana product purchased over the weekend with mold growth on it has prompted an investigation by state health officials, according to a release from the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services.
The complaint comes just days after state-licensed dispensaries began selling medical marijuana. N’Bliss was the first in the state to began sales at two St. Louis-area dispensaries on Saturday.
N’Bliss voluntarily suspended the sales of the product and pulled the remaining inventory from its dispensary after it was alerted to the potential problem by a customer, the company said in a statement posted to its website.
The batch was among four strains of medical marijuana that had passed lab testing requirements and arrived pre-packaged at the dispensary, the company said. It was working with the health department and was awaiting additional lab testing.
The product allegedly showed signs of bud rot and white mold, according to a health department notice posted included with the company’s statement on its website.
The state has notified patients and caregivers who purchased the product not to consume any unused product until it had been cleared.
Fresh Green in Lee’s Summit became the first dispensary in the Kansas City area to sell marijuana when it opened Monday afternoon. Bianca Sullivan, a lawyer who owns the business with her husband, said her shop did not have any of the product in question.
She said Fresh Green does use the same supplier, Perryville-based cultivator Archimedes, which uses the Solhaus brand. But the Lee’s Summit business did not sell any of the lemon sour diesel, or LSD strain, that was the subject of the complaint, she said.
“We had none of that,” Sullivan said. “That’s one good thing. We never, ever had that strain at all.”
Fresh Green opened with four strains of ground and flower marijuana on Monday. By the end of the day Tuesday, it had sold out.
The state’s medical marijuana program, ushered in by a Constitutional amendment approved by Missouri voters in November 2018, is highly regulated.
All growers, manufacturers and dispensaries must abide by a slew of security and safety restrictions. And the product itself, whether dried marijuana flower or edible gummies, goes through state inspections. Part of the regulations include seed-to-sale tracking and tracing.
The Missouri Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the marijuana program, said it had halted sales on the batch in question.
“The relevant product batch passed all required testing prior to sale, but additional testing is being done at this time to determine the source of the mold. Initial visual inspection of the remaining product from the relevant batch has not indicated a concern, but this additional laboratory testing is underway as part of the investigation,” the department said in a news release.
The department said the strain was sold to more than 200 individuals, but no adverse reactions have so far been reported. Patients who think they may be experiencing an adverse reaction should contact the department’s Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 2:09 PM.
