The Catalan police have dismantled a laboratory in Barcelona where sweets and other food products were manufactured that contained unregulated psychoactive ingredients and were not made under the proper hygiene conditions.
The investigation began on March 15 of last year with the arrest of four people who allegedly made and distributed these candies that contained cannabis. The National Institute of Toxicology has now confirmed that the seized products contained THC.
The detainees are three men and a woman, between the ages of 32 and 42, who also owned a marijuana plantation in the basement of a store they used as a warehouse in the Horta-Guinardó district.
The Court of Instruction of Barcelona has decreed the freedom with charges for three.
On March 15 of last year, an off-duty agent alerted agents of the Citizen Security Unit because there were some men with an attitude of surveillance in front of a store and they were loading boxes into a car parked on the sidewalk.
These boxes were full of marijuana cuttings and inside the premises there were more with the same characteristics, ready to be loaded into the car with the same content inside.
The agents, during the inspection, verified that inside the premises, there were also other boxes that contained a large quantity of edible products that looked like chocolate bars, sweets, sweets, drinks, among others, and their packaging indicated that they contained THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, which is a psychoactive cannabinoid from the Cannabis Sativa plant).
The appearance of the products and the way they were wrapped could be misleading to a person who is unaware of the content, such as a minor. Therefore, they could be easily consumed and thus pose a high risk to people’s health.
Likewise, the hygienic and health conditions of the premises did not provide guarantees for the handling and preparation of edible products intended for consumption.
In the basement of the premises they found a plantation of marijuana plants, 28 of which were adults and 116 in the process of growing, and a kitchen in which the detainees supposedly prepared edible products.
In total, the researchers intervened 2,061 marijuana cuttings, 28 adult marijuana plants and 116 in the growth phase, and 7,000 euros that the detainees had on them.
They also intervened all the boxes that contained edible products such as 91 cardboard boxes inside which there were 66,000 chocolate bars with THC. The approximate value of all the products intervened in the market is between 120,000 and 150,000 euros and, that of marijuana, about 7,000 euros.
The four detainees, without prior records, were brought before the courts and the judge ordered their release with charges.
The Investigating Court of Barcelona also authorized the incineration and destruction of all seized material.
