Testing For Tainted Marijuana Challenges States

canada goose coats People don’t just smoke marijuana. They vaporize it, bake it into brownies, use it in eye drops, and rub extracts of it onto their skin. Some people use the drug as medicine, others for the fun of getting high. canada goose coats

canada goose uk outlet In states that have legalized pot, regulators have struggled to make sure the bewildering array of products on dispensary shelves are safe to consume. States where the drug has been legally sold for several years such as Colorado, Oregon and Washington are still trying to figure out standards and laboratory testing rules for potential canada goose coats toxins such as pesticides, solvents and mold. canada goose uk outlet

“The big challenge with this industry is the speed at which it innovates and evolves,” said Danica Lee, director of public health inspections for the city of Denver. “It continues to be canada goose black friday sale a bit of an adventure.”

canada goose store The link between illness and tainted marijuana isn’t well established. But anecdotes have emerged of vulnerable consumers, such as cancer patients, contracting dangerous infections after smoking bad Canada Goose Parka weed. canada goose store

buy canada goose jacket States and cities are trying to head off a health crisis before it can happen. They’re balancing public safety concerns against some marijuana growers’ and manufacturers’ reluctance to pay for testing that’s expensive and not proven to improve safety, and canada goose coats on sale some laboratories’ eagerness to run additional tests. buy canada goose jacket

Lori Ajax, California’s chief of cannabis regulation, said earlier this year that writing regulations for lab testing was probably the biggest challenge her team faced in writing medical marijuana regulations. The medical marijuana rules have since been folded into rules for the adult use market, which canada goose clearance opens Jan. 1.

State regulators have had no guidance from the federal agencies that usually set health and safety standards for canadian goose jacket agriculture, food and medicine because the federal government considers marijuana to be illegal. They have been hampered by the fact that there’s little research on how marijuana tainted with potential toxins affects humans, partly because the federal government funds limited marijuana research.

uk canada goose And they’ve also had to adjust testing regulations to reflect the costs and amount of tests fledgling legal marijuana markets can handle. uk canada goose

In Oregon, for instance, initial rules rolled out in October 2016 for marijuana testing and laboratory accreditation contributed to backlogs at laboratories and shortages of product on dispensary shelves. Regulators, seeking to ease the pressure on the market, issued new rules that December that reduced the number of times a harvest, or a batch of chocolates or candies, would have to be tested.

cheap canada goose uk Donald Morse, a buy canada goose jacket cheap dispensary canada goose clearance sale owner and chairman of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council, a trade group, said too much testing would have raised the price Canada Goose online of marijuana too far. “It would have been out of reach to most people, and they would end up going back to the black market.” cheap canada goose uk

States have adopted a range of testing requirements and standards for marijuana, from testing medical marijuana like a medicinal drug in Massachusetts to not requiring medical marijuana to be tested at all in Arizona.

Canada Goose Coats On Sale “Some states are regulating it as if it’s a pharmaceutical, and some states are regulating it canada goose store as if it’s an agricultural product,” said Julianne Nassif, director of environmental health for the Association of Public Health Laboratories, a membership organization based in Maryland. Her organization hosts a monthly conference call on marijuana issues for officials who work in state public health, environment and agricultural labs. Canada Goose Coats On Sale

canada goose clearance sale In general, Nassif said, states have come up with a menu of Canada Goose sale substances for which to test medical marijuana, including heavy metals, dangerous pesticides and microorganisms, such as E. coli. As they expand to also permit all adults to buy the drug, many are including the same requirements for all kinds of weed. canada goose clearance sale

Under California’s new rules for pesticides, for instance, marijuana that tests positive for some pesticides and over a set limit for others cannot be sold.

Canada Goose online States also typically require testing for major cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical compound that gets you high for both medicinal and recreational marijuana, so consumers know what they’re about to smoke. Canada Goose online

canada goose uk black friday The first states to regulate cannabis made their testing rules more or less on the fly, based on what scientists know makes people sick. canada goose uk black friday

For instance, foods generally need to be refrigerated and processed properly to avoid developing dangerous bacteria such as botulism. So Denver, one of the first cities to begin food safety inspections of pot products, requires dispensaries to refrigeratemany cheap Canada Goose edibles and hash oils at 41 degrees or less.

Other safety questions are harder to answer. Take pesticides: There’s hardly any research on what pesticides are safe to use on cannabis plants, which are canada goose processed and consumed in multiple ways. Concentrating cannabis to create oils, waxes and tinctures may concentrate pesticide residue.

canadian goose jacket Denver has erred on the side of caution by recalling products that test positive for pesticides the state department of agriculture has not approved for use on cannabis. The city public health office’s recall notices all include a disclaimer: “The possible health impact of consuming marijuana products with unapproved pesticide residues is unknown.” canadian goose jacket

Or take bacteria and fungi: Some organisms, like the fungus aspergillus, have been found on marijuana plants and can lead to dangerous infections in people with compromised immune systems. States such as California have erred on the side of caution and required testing for the organism.

Canada Goose Online Denver’s Danica Lee said her office often gets calls from public health officials in other states who want advice. She can’t offer easy answers, because marijuana growing and processing practices are so varied. “There are probably as many ways of making a concentrate as there are businesses making concentrates,” she said. Canada Goose Online

Canada Goose Parka Instead, she advises other officials to ask questions until they understand the processes local businesses are using. Denver issued its first marijuana recall, for instance, after Canada Goose Outlet food safety inspectors found an edibles business was using a clothes washing machine to extract THC from weed. Although nobody got sick from eating the resulting brownie mixes, blondie mixes, rice crispy treats and candies, regulators were concerned about the choice of equipment. Canada Goose Parka

But labs in a given state may come up with wildly different results. “There are no accepted, standard procedures for all test types,” said Jeff Raber, founder of the Werc Shop, a cannabis research center and testing laboratory based in Monrovia, California. It’s not like testing aspirin, where there’s one set process to follow, he said. “We don’t have anything buy canada goose jacket like that in cannabis yet.”

States have found they need to write detailed rules and standards for laboratories to follow. In Alaska, cannabis regulators are convening next month to rethink their testing regulations because the state’s two privately owned cannabis testing labs are producing wildly different THC content results.

canada goose coats on sale Consumers often go looking for pot with a high THC rating, which gives cultivators an incentive to seek out labs that find lots of THC in their product, and gives http://www.canadagoosesalesus.com labs an incentive to goose the numbers. canada goose coats on sale

Jedediah Smith, a local government specialist at the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, said testing regulations may be too vague. “There need to be consistent methods across all of the labs,” he said. The current regulations don’t specifically say “this is the method that’s been proven and canada goose outlet needs to be used.”

Sampling could be an issue, he said, as in Alaska where growers select samples of marijuana plants and bring them to labs themselves. In other states, such as Oregon, laboratories do the sampling, which may lead to a more representative, randomized result.

Canada Goose Jackets In addition to its sampling rules, Oregon requires cannabis labs to be accredited by a state environmental laboratory program, which has helped standardize lab results. Ourso said Canada Goose Jackets labs may need additional oversight after they’re accredited. Canada Goose Jackets

Alaska’s laboratories are not certified by a state agency, although they are inspected by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation, a nonprofit, Smith said.