Being first to make recreational marijuana legal has meant Colorado is an experiment, but nobody saw this one coming. hugowater_406x250Hugo, CO, a town of about 730 people, located 110 miles from Denver on the Eastern Plains has reported its municipal water has tested posiive for THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient. THC is what people pay for — in edibles and smokeable forms. But Hugo water is being reported as containing so much THC that town residents are being warned not even to let their pets drink it. And they were serious enough about the warning that Hugo officials held a Thursday evening news conference on the issue and promised to complete more tests on Friday. “We are checking to make sure this isn’t because of the field test kit — that it is not a false positive.” said Capt. Michael Yowell of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office. The town decided to test its water after a Hugo company doing drug screening was coming up with wildly different results. Lincoln County officials conducted ten field tests, using two different types of test kits, on the town’s water and six came back positive. They isolated the positive results to a single well — well No. 1, about a mile south of Hugo’s small downtown. When sheriff’s deputies investigated, Yowell said, they found signs of forced entry at the well, though it is unclear when the damage may have occurred. “I wouldn’t be doing my job for my community if we just wrote this off,” Yowell said. The Hugo well has been sealed and secured, but officials said it will take time for water to flush through the lines. Prosecuting attorneys from the local 18th Judicial District, FBI, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation have been called in. Screening stations are being set up for concerned residents, and fresh water is being trucked in. The Lincoln County Public Heath Department says the public should avoid the town’s water for at least the next 48 hours and report any unusual effects to the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center. Hugo Mayor Tom Lee says there hasn’t been the kind of acrimonious debate over marijuana in the town as there has been in other Colorado communities. Lee said. “It just blew my mind.” (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)