You Still Can’t Trust Your Pot Dealer

Drug dealers were never the most trustworthy of businesspeople, but that was usually because of a strategic disregard for the truth. Now comes a report claiming that many merchants of legal marijuana are selling pot whose potency labels are way off the mark, not for dishonest financial gain, but because they don’t know any better.  A news release from Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that researchers collected 75 different edible cannabis products — baked goods, beverages and candy/chocolates — representing 47 different brands, all legally purchased from three medical dispensaries in each of three cities:  Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. When the researchers compared the THC content listed on product labels with the laboratory measures, they found that only 13 products (17 percent) were accurately labeled. When lab results differed from the product label by more than 10 percent, the team categorized those products as either under- or overlabeled. Some 17 products (23 percent) had more THC than advertised, which could lead to overdosing. The majority of products — 45 products (60 percent) — were overlabeled, meaning patients purchasing those products for their THC content are not getting the dose of medicine they believed they purchased.