Benjamin’s Edibles in Hot Water with Feds Over Slim Jammin’ Jerky

Last week, a vendor who sells a variety of edibles to the dispensary where I work informed me of a rumor he had heard regarding Benjamin Edibles‘ Slim Jammin’, a Slim Jim-esque jerky product that is loaded with 200 mg of medicine. While certainly not the most popular item that Benjamin’s Edibles makes, (that would be their CBD-rich Benjamin Bank Roll, which comes in bite sized 33 mg pieces, longer 100 mg pieces, and super ridiculous 1,000 mg “High Rollers Bank Rolls”) Slim Jammin’s are certainly a fun product that many patients enjoyed because of the sheer novelty of eating a medicated Slim Jim.

He told me that he had heard that Benjamin was being investigated by the USDA for manufacturing a meat product without running it by the federal food safety body that makes sure that no tainted meat is on the shelves of any store. Apparently the Colorado MMED and USDA have been going around to dispensaries and requiring that they remove the Slim Jammin’ from their stock. While the dispensaries themselves were not getting in trouble, he informed me that Benjamin Edibles were in some serious trouble with the feds.

Over the weekend, Denver’s Westword reported that this was, in fact, true, and that the USDA was indeed involved.

While many other stories of this nature that appear here on Weedist would, by this point in the article, start discussing how the federal government were infringing upon the rights of legitimate businesses to manufacture MMJ products, this one is different.

Unfortunately for Benjamin’s Edibles, this seems like a pretty clear-cut case of someone just not doing their homework. While I am certainly not a fan of the federal government regulating every single thing that gets made in our country, the USDA exists to make sure that people don’t get food poisoning from bad products. Medicated jerky is a great idea, but someone should have thought to make sure that they were totally compliant with basic food regulations.

A few days after Westword broke the story, we got a call from Benjamin’s telling us to take the precuts off the shelves. Obviously, we were way ahead of them and had already pulled the products in question as soon as we heard the news through the grapevine.

Both the vendor and the Westword article mention that companies making MMJ infused products with dairy might also face a similar fate. While Solace Meds (makers of the excellent Chai High teas, which have milk in addition to over 316 mg of medicine in each bottle) have not reported that they’ve had a problem, here’s hoping that it stays that way.