First Shipment of Weed-Laced Sodas Explodes off the Shelves
A marijuana-laced soda sold legally in Washington State has turned out to be extremely dangerous. Not because of the totally reasonable 10mg of THC in each bottle, but because the sodas have been randomly exploding on store shelves.
Employees of a Bellingham pot shop say that one day after receiving their first shipment of Mirth Provisions' pot-infused pomegranate soda—cleverly branded "Legal"—they came in to find broken glass everywhere, Seattle's KOMO News reported.
They quarantined the soda inside a steel container, where bottles would periodically explode for the next 10 days.
"It sounded like a shotgun going off," Top Shelf Cannabis manager Zach Henifin told KOMO, "You can actually feel it, it was that explosive."
The problem was too much yeast. Although the pressure inside the bottles was acceptable when they were shipped, the carbon dioxide buildup over a period of days eventually overwhelmed the glass. Two Vancouver, BC, shops told KOMO they'd had the same problem.
Why didn't Top Shelf just destroy the rest of the bottles instead of building a tremendously loud "bomb box"? Well, Washington's Liquor Control Board requires the manufacturer to dispose of any marijuana products, and Mirth Provisions—located more than 3 hours away from the shop—didn't send someone to pick them up until 9 days later.
And when bottles of the soda started blowing up while they were being loaded into the driver's van, he bailed, abandoning the rest of the shipment. As of Tuesday, almost every one of the 330 bottles had popped.
"Sometimes when you're creating new products in a new marketplace, there's a little bit of a learning curve," Mirth founder Adam Stites shrugged. He's sending someone for the rest of the bottles this week, and waiting for the Liquor Control Board's ruling on what to do with them.
