Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is taking a small marijuana company to court over claims allegedly made by the business that its goods were actually federally legal hemp instead of only state-legal marijuana.
Foxhole Farms – a marijuana grower, manufacturer and distributor based near Grand Junction, Colorado – has been illegally selling its goods as hemp products since at least mid-2023, the lawsuit asserts. Weiser’s office learned of it through a customer complaint filed from outside of Colorado that asserted that a 16-year-old teenager had been able to purchase cannabis online from the company.
That was enough for Weiser’s office to launch an undercover sting operation, which discovered that Foxhole was allegedly selling to minors by not verifying age properly online, and that it was improperly and illegally selling its marijuana as hemp, which by federal law cannot have more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight.
“As of November 2024, the Foxhole website can be accessed by anyone, including minors and children,” the lawsuit asserts.
Weiser’s agents purchased 23 different products from Foxhole for testing – including flower, edibles and concentrates – and found that a whopping 21 were found to be “misrepresented” on the Foxhole website as hemp instead of marijuana, by labeling the products as containing “legally allowable levels of Delta-9 THC, which likely led consumers to incorrectly believe the products were not marijuana.”
“One product tested at nearly 250 times the legal limit of Delta-9 THC content. Many products also misrepresented the amount of cannabinoid that they actually contained,” Weiser’s office said in a press release.
The labels even brazenly read, “This package contains industrial hemp products grown and produced in accordance with the Agricultural Act of 2014 … While the products may look like marijuana, they are not.” Several goods from Foxhole purchased by undercover agents with Weiser’s office bore that label, which was titled “notice to law enforcement.”
“Despite several products containing higher Delta-9 THC levels than products sold in legal recreational dispensaries, and selling products that resemble and/or are identical to popular children’s candy and snacks, none of the company’s packaging was childproof, child-resistant, or explicitly stated the products contained THC at all,” Weiser’s office said.
Some of the products also tested far beyond the legal limit for certain solvent contaminants, and one tested particularly high for unsafe levels of benzene, which can “be extremely toxic, even deadly, when ingested,” the attorney general’s office said. The lawsuit also noted that other products contained prohibited pesticides, such as boscalid, myclobutanil and fluopyram.
“When companies like the defendants in this case brazenly break the law, they undermine Colorado’s regulated cannabis market, make it easier for kids to get their hands on cannabis, and may be exposing consumers to dangerous products,” Weiser said in the release. “We will continue to hold accountable companies that try to make a quick buck by breaking the law.”
Weiser filed suit against Foxhole and its owner, Dane Snover, in Adams County District Court on Nov. 21, and is asking for punitive fines of $20,000 per day to be levied against the company, along with a court order prohibiting Foxhole from continuing its “deceptive trade practices.”
Colorado AG hemp lawsuit Agents purchased 23 products from Foxhole Farms, 21 of which tested at higher levels of THC than allowed in hemp goods. Read More
