Marijuana-infused food market growing

…But in Washington’s scantily regulated medical-marijuana industry, no one is checking how such food and drink products are made, or how safe they are.

And there’s a lot to check.

A dizzying array of cannabis-infused products — from taco mix to cotton candy, from pulled pork to carbonated colas — have begun

showing up in the past two years on the shelves at storefront marijuana dispensaries.

Medibles are the fastest-growing segment of Washington’s fast-growing medical marijuana industry. Their wares represent perhaps a third of sales at storefront dispensaries.

And business could really take off if voters in November approve Initiative 502. The measure would legalize marijuana sales for recreational use and create state-licensed marijuana stores that presumably would carry a variety of cannabis-infused food and drink. Those products are seen as a tastier, more healthful alternative to smoking, in which dosages of THC can be more exact, and more appealing to older users.

But for now, medibles producers operate even more underground than dispensaries. And even though they make food, no one is inspecting them because state officials defer to the federal ban on marijuana.

That frustrates Chaney. He has bounced among four production sites, most recently losing a commercial kitchen in Seattle when his landlord in August got a cease-and-desist letter from the Drug Enforcement Administration and shut down.

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