Colorado Knew 1906 Midnight Drops Hurt Livers. It Stayed on Shelves 15 Months.

In March 2022, Colorado public health officials started receiving reports of liver damage linked to 1906 Midnight Drops, a marijuana-based sleep aid that had quickly become a top seller in the state. It took until June 2023, nearly 15 months later, for the state's Marijuana Enforcement Division to warn consumers, and only after more reports of "acute liver injury" and the manufacturer halting production. That delay is the headline fact, but the story underneath is more disturbing: the system designed to protect consumers in the nation's first regulated recreational marijuana market failed at nearly every step.

The enforcement division investigated the complaints but decided it didn't have the power to pull the drops from stores. Had it dug deeper, it might have found what the state attorney general's office later discovered: Sima Sciences, the manufacturer, began receiving complaints of harm shortly after launching Midnight Drops in 2019, two years before health officials ever heard about them. Instead of issuing a health and safety warning, the agency posted a neutrally named "informational notification" four months after the first report. The notice said there had been "adverse health events" but regulators found no violations, and the manufacturer had reformulated the product. Jenifer Chatting, a surgical assistant at an oral surgeon's office, never saw it.

Chatting had wanted a safe, natural alternative to pharmaceuticals for her insomnia, and a local dispensary suggested the sugar-free cannabis and herbal extract drops that the manufacturer touted as "the best sleep aid on the market." She began taking them nightly in March 2022, the same month the state received its first complaint. By September 2022, she was experiencing full-body cramps and became lactose intolerant, but she attributed it to needing more water and kept taking the drops for nine more months, until her dispensary stopped stocking them. Now, at 53, she has liver damage and her doctor says she will ultimately need a transplant. Her medical records show she never had liver problems before.

Chatting's case is not an anomaly. The Denver Gazette and ProPublica found that Colorado regulators take an average of more than seven months to issue a warning after receiving a complaint or starting an investigation. The news organizations identified initial complaint or investigative start dates for 23 of the 83 advisories the agency issued over the past five years, by reviewing other licensing violation records. The division refused to release data on when investigations began, saying complaint dates were private because probes were ongoing, even years after warnings were issued and some companies had surrendered their licenses.

Seven months is a long time for products that are typically smoked or ingested within days of purchase, industry insiders and consumer safety experts said. For comparison, federal investigators have criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for taking an average of two months to warn consumers and get companies to recall contaminated food. Kimberly Anzarut, a former Denver marijuana regulator and now an industry consultant, said the delays mean Colorado consumers aren't getting vital warnings while products are still on shelves. "When you take a really long time to get a bulletin out to tell people about these issues, a lot of time, people have already consumed the product," she said.

The slow response stems from limited authority and process. The division relies on posting advisories on its website and sending news releases to local media outlets. It can require companies to stop distributing flagged products, but industry lawyers and manufacturers said companies often continue selling them while challenging the findings. Lab directors said test results identifying contaminants generally take three days, or one day in an emergency. MED spokesperson Heather Draper said it takes time to build a case, requiring investigative resources to evaluate the scope of concerns, gather evidence, and receive test results. Thuy Vu, Denver's former head of marijuana inspections and enforcement, said "time is of the essence" because reported problems are almost always a fraction of actual harm. "Seven months, eight months, that's ridiculous," she said.

The product's creator, Peter Barsoom, is a former Wall Street wunderkind who co-founded Sima Sciences in 2014. The 1906 line was named after the year the U.S. enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act, which he said led to federal regulation and eventual prohibition of cannabis. His initial focus was high-end marijuana-infused truffle chocolates. Chatting and her husband Luke are suing the company, which has denied their claims; the lawsuit is pending. Luke asked why there weren't "big banners in front of the dispensaries" and criticized the state for collecting millions in marijuana taxes while doing little regulation. For executives in regulated industries, the lesson is clear: a product's shelf life can outlast a regulator's response, and the cost of that gap is measured in consumer harm, legal exposure, and lost trust.