Colorado Manufacturer Recalls Products

Colorado manufacturer StayCon, which does business as Craft, has voluntarily recalled 49 vape products after methylene chloride was detected in a botanically derived ingredient. Some affected products had reportedly been on dispensary shelves for more than a year and a half. Colorado Politics

The recalled products include brands and varieties such as Maui Wowie, Grape Gorilla and Sesh products. Denver's Bona Fides Laboratory detected the solvent in August. Lab owner David Mathis says he notified both StayCon and the state at the time. Six weeks later, the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division still had not issued its own consumer recall notice when the story was published. Colorado Politics

The timing is the real story. Colorado adopted an expanded residual-solvent panel that specifically includes methylene chloride with a "none detected" limit, but implementation scheduled for July 1 was postponed because no state testing facility had yet been certified to perform the expanded panel. MED now says implementation should begin at the end of September. MMJDaily

This is not Colorado's first methylene-chloride problem.

Earlier Denver Gazette/ProPublica reporting found the chemical in another licensed vape product and traced that product back to chemically converted hemp material being passed through the regulated market. Colorado prohibits that conversion and has acknowledged that the amount of converted hemp entering licensed inventory is greater than regulators had previously disclosed. ProPublica

That history makes StayCon's explanation contentious. The company says the contamination came from a botanically derived flavoring ingredient. Competitor Mammoth Farms owner Justin Trouard told the reporters he suspects something different: that StayCon had been using converted hemp. He supplied 2024 third-party testing that he says indicated StayCon and two other brands contained synthetic hemp-derived material. StayCon previously denied that allegation. At this point, contamination is established; intentional hemp conversion is an allegation, not an established fact. Colorado Politics

There's another uncomfortable wrinkle. On September 15, the Fifth Circuit vacated the EPA's broader 2024 methylene-chloride rule in East Fork Enterprises v. EPA. That does not make the solvent acceptable in Colorado-regulated products; Colorado's own rules independently prohibit it. Holland & Knight

This brings several stories across the country to the same light.

Missouri is independently retesting products because the original laboratory result may not tell the whole story. Arizona retailers are deciding which laboratories they trust. New York is considering legislation specifically aimed at false product lineage. Colorado has been fighting chemically converted hemp entering regulated inventory.

Now Colorado has found a contaminant that its own new rules were already designed to detect—but the testing infrastructure wasn't ready when the rule was supposed to begin.