Testing Times
Tighter controls on cannabis quality are inevitable in a growing legal market. But isn’t that how it should be?
As January 1 2018 dawned, California opened the doors on what will be the world’s biggest legal cannabis market. But with legalization comes regulation, and the state is imposing rules on everything from banking to as-yet-nonexistent delivery drones. Standardized quality testing of cannabis products is also included, and the new standards for pesticide testing are garnering particular attention. Where previously there were no requirements for pesticide testing, all legal cannabis in the state will now be tested for residues of 66 pesticides listed by the newly formed Bureau of Cannabis Control; however, cannabis produced before the cut-off date can still be sold for another six months.
California’s stringent approach to legislation inspired this month’s cover feature on pesticide residue analysis. As Chris Hudalla (ProVerde Laboratories) explains in our feature, the risks of pesticides were largely ignored by the first US states to allow medical cannabis – a strange oversight, given the raft of regulations that govern pesticide use in food crops. Couple the fact that cannabis is frequently smoked with a lack of knowledge in the realm of pesticide pyrolysis, and the oversight seems even stranger.
The cannabis industry should not model itself on big tobacco, who have lobbied against attempts to control pesticides in their products. Indeed, the cannabis industry must strive to do much better – and not least because much of the legal cannabis market is for medicinal use.
There is some controversy about California’s new standards, with some arguing that the limits are so low that they may prompt growers to look for ways around the regulation – by using pesticides not on the state’s list or seeking out labs more likely to give them the results they want. It’s important that new regulations aren’t so time-consuming and expensive to implement, that part of the industry is driven back underground.
Change may not happen overnight. But it will happen – if not by regulatory pressures then by consumer demand. As legalization is rolled out in an increasingly transparent marketplace, customers will start to wonder – everything else we consume is tested, why not cannabis? There may be teething troubles ahead, but I’m sure the end result is one we can all get behind.
