Testing For Tainted Marijuana Challenges States
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.
In states that have legalized pot, regulators have struggled to make sure the bewildering uk canada goose outlet 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 toxins such as pesticides, solvents and mold.
canada goose deals “The big uk canada goose challenge with this canada goose black friday sale 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 a bit of an adventure.” canada goose deals
buy canada goose jacket cheap 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 weed. buy canada goose jacket cheap
Canada Goose online States and cities are trying to head off a health crisis before it can happen. They’re balancing public buy canada goose jacket cheap safety concerns against some marijuana growers’ and manufacturers’ reluctance to pay for testing that’s expensive and not proven to improve safety, and some laboratories’ eagerness to run additional tests. Canada Goose online
Lori Ajax, California’s chief of cannabis regulation, said earlier this year that writing Canada Goose Online 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 opens Jan. 1.
canada goose black friday sale State regulators have had no guidance from the federal agencies that usually set health and safety standards for 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. canada goose black friday sale
And they’ve also had to adjust testing regulations to reflect the costs and amount of tests fledgling legal marijuana markets can handle.
In Oregon, for instance, initial rules rolled out in October 2016 for marijuana testing and laboratory accreditation contributed canada goose uk shop 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.
Donald Morse, a dispensary owner and chairman of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council, a trade group, said too much testing would have raised the price of marijuana too far. Canada Goose Jackets “It would have been out of reach to most people, and they would end up going back to the black market.”
Canada Goose Jackets States have adopted a range of testing requirements and standards for marijuana, from testing medical marijuana like a medicinal drug in Massachusetts to not Canada Goose Coats On Sale requiring medical marijuana to be tested at all in Arizona. Canada Goose Jackets
cheap Canada Goose “Some states are regulating it as if it’s a pharmaceutical, and some states are regulating it 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. cheap Canada Goose
Canada Goose Parka In general, Nassif said, states have come up with a menu of 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 canada goose uk black friday buy the drug, many are including the same requirements for all kinds of weed. Canada Goose Parka
canada goose Under California’s canada goose factory sale 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
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canada goose coats 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 coats
For instance, foods generally need canadian goose jacket to be refrigerated and processed properly to avoid developing dangerous bacteria such as botulism. So Denver, canada goose uk outlet one of the first cities to begin food safety inspections of pot products, requires dispensaries Canada Goose Outlet to refrigeratemany edibles and hash oils at 41 degrees or less.
Other safety questions are harder to answer. Take pesticides: There’s hardly any buy canada goose jacket research on what pesticides are safe to use on cannabis plants, which are processed and consumed in multiple ways. Concentrating cannabis to create oils, waxes and tinctures may concentrate pesticide residue.
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 canada goose clearance recall notices all include a disclaimer: “The possible health impact of consuming marijuana products Canada Goose sale with unapproved pesticide residues is unknown.”
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Denver’s Danica Lee said her office often gets calls from public health officials in other states canada goose who want advice. She can’t offer Canada Goose Parka 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 Outlet 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 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 Outlet
Canada Goose sale But labs in a given state may come up with canada goose coats 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 like that in cannabis yet.” Canada Goose sale
canadian goose jacket 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. canadian goose jacket
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canada goose clearance 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 needs to be used.” canada goose clearance
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 coats on sale 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 coats on sale labs may need additional oversight after they’re accredited. canada goose coats on sale
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.
