SYDNEY RIVER -- George Poulain is still in disbelief after what he thought was going to be a routine trip to buy a couple of grams of pot.
When he took two boxes to the checkout at the NSLC Cannabis outlet in Sydney River on Saturday, he and the cashier quickly noticed something was different about one of them.
"She took the other one and I said to her immediately, 'it sounds like there's marbles in that one,' and we both laughed," Poulain said.
He said the box was heavier too, and after giving it a shake the cashier decided it needed to be opened.
"She called her supervisor in," Poulain said. "The seal was broken, the container was opened, and there were nuts and bolts found inside the container."
That container was a one-gram box of a cannabis called Houndstooth, which is produced by Canopy Growth of Ontario.
NSLC spokesperson Beverley Ware says they've never had anything like this happen since they started selling cannabis.
She says all pot products on their shelves are sealed in the production facility, and the seal isn't broken until the customer opens them.
"All of our product comes from federally-licensed producers, and they operate under very strict federal regulations when it comes to their production," Ware said. "So, we contacted the company right away, alerted them to this issue, and they're doing an investigation to see if they can determine what may have happened."
In an email, the company said it's "working with the NSLC to gather information. Canopy growth applies hundreds of quality control checkpoints to our products, including metal detection."
Poulain says, while this raises concerns about what's in his pot, and what might be in the box next time, he's glad the discovery was made at the store.
Ware says while the box in question was never sold, cannabis products that are defective can be returned for a full exchange or refund.
