Man who plunged from Denver balcony ate 6x recommended amount of pot cookie

A college student who jumped to his death from a Denver hotel balcony last month ate six times the recommended amount of a marijuana cookie before his death.

Levy Thamba, a 19-year-old student at Northwest College in Powell, Wyo., died last month at a Holiday Inn in northeast Denver while visiting with three friends.

An investigative report by Denver police into Thamba’s death released this week details events leading up to the young man’s death.

This story was first reported by CBS4.

Denver police presented the case to the Denver District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors decided not to pursue criminal charges against Bessie Gondwe, the only person of legal age among the foursome who would be able to purchase recreational marijuana in Colorado.

Thamba, who was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, ate an entire “Sweet Grass Kitchen” lemon poppy seed cookie. It contained 65 milligrams of THC and was labeled 6.5 servings, the report said.

Gondwe, 23, one of the students and a friend of Thamba, told investigators that the cookie was purchased at a downtown marijuana store, Native Root Apothecary, on the 16th Street Mall.

An employee at the store told them to “cut the cookie into six pieces and to only eat one piece at a time,” the police report said.

The group purchased four cookies, one for each one of them, at a price of $10 apiece.

Back at the hotel they all consumed a single slice of the cookie. Thamba said “he didn’t feel anything and he ate the remainder of his cookie all at once.”

Thamba awoke early that morning, shivering and speaking in French, the report said. The others — the group was sharing a room — calmed him down.

But he awoke several times, again in incoherent states, at one point apparently talking to a room lamp.

During one of the intervals, Thamba left the fourth- floor hotel room, returned and said: “This is a sign from God that this has happened, that I can’t control myself,” Anna Jakaovljeveic, 20, Thamba’s friend, told investigators. “It’s not because of the weed.”

He went back to sleep, but awoke “crazy” and began smashing room furniture, lamps and the television.

He ran from the room, out the front door, and tumbled over a railing on an elevated hallway overlooking the lobby.

Two hotel employees witnessed the fall and told police no one was near him at the time.

Andres Bigum, 20, was bolting after Thamba from the room, but wasn’t able to catch up with the victim.

As part of the investigation police confiscated all Sweet Grass cookies Native Root had in stock. All of the 67 cookies had THC levels that tested within “required limits,” the report said.

The Denver coroner listed “marijuana intoxication” as a significant condition contributing to his death. According to an autopsy report, Thamba’s marijuana concentration in his blood was 7.2 nanograms of active THC per milliliter of blood. In impaired driving cases, state law sets a standard of 5 nanograms per milliliter at which juries can presume impairment.

Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822, knicholson@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kierannicholson