The agency charged with regulating Colorado’s first-in-the-nation legal recreational marijuana market potentially put consumers at risk of using contaminated products, a new state audit found.

The report pointed to inconsistent oversight by the Marijuana Enforcement Division and loose state rules around testing marijuana products or contaminants. As a result, it found, nearly 75% of marijuana processed for eventual sale from 2023 through 2025 evaded testing for pesticides.

The audit, released Monday, identified a host of issues, including regulators’ failure to meet regular inspection schedules or to conduct sufficient random checks at dispensaries for contaminated products. It also found that delayed agency warnings to the public allowed potentially contaminated products to remain on shelves for months, sometimes years.

The audit’s conclusions echo several findings of an investigation this year by The Denver Gazette and ProPublica into the Marijuana Enforcement Division’s lapses in policing contaminants entering the legal marketplace.

In one case highlighted by the newsrooms, it took 15 months for a manufacturer to discontinue production of a marijuana sleep aid pill despite consumers warning regulators that the product was harming their livers. The pills had herbal extracts that researchers say can cause liver damage.

Auditors said they did not identify evidence of “widespread health and safety issues” but did find that deficient regulations still left consumers vulnerable.

The audit found that unsafe products had remained on the market for as long as three years before the Marijuana........

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