A Response to the LA Times Article About Pesticides in Weed

Recently the Los Angeles Times published this article about pesticides found in products purchased in legal dispensaries throughout California. However, an important point that seemed to be missing from the Los Angeles Times article was the role of the brands, because the online reaction has been to immediately blame brands for pesticide contamination. The problem is, it's a lot more nuanced than that.

First, all products sold in a legal dispensary must have a COA showing that the products has met all required regulations (potency, pesticide, microbial testing, etc). Second, these COAs are issued by BATCH. A batch size is determined by the brand. It can be 100 units or 10000 units. But what the LA Times article fails to mention is that specific BATCHES of products were independently tested and some of those products tested positive for pesticides. This does NOT mean that all products produced by a particular BRAND contain pesticides. Unfortunately, the reaction online has been to assume that all products produced by a particular brand contain pesticides or other contaminants, when in fact, failed testing on a single batch could happen to any brand.

Also, yes, there are bad actors in the industry, and I will 100% agree that it has been known in the industry that some labs will be pressured by certain brands to increase potency, allow passing results, etc. However, over the years many of these labs have been shut down, though this problem persists. Brands dedicated to safety can and do setup their own internal processes to ensure quality. And if it is found that a brand's products are CONSISTENTLY failing independent testing, then yeah, something's up and as a consumer I would avoid that brand.

But back to my point, no matter what we do as brands, it is still up to the labs and the state that regulate those labs to set and enforce the standards that we are required to follow. And having worked in the industry for 8 years, I also know the inconsistent results provided by labs. This is not the fault of the brand, as most are not influencing the labs at all. When we provide the same sample to two labs, but get varying results, we don't know why. But as a business owner, I am going to pick the state certified lab that consistently provides me the most favorable results. Maybe their processes are better, maybe they are more familiar with testing my particular type of product, maybe they do a better clean out of their equipment which reduces contamination, but for these reasons, from a business perspective, I'm going to pick the lab where my product consistently passes.

Which leads me to this point. If that lab issues me a passing COA, that gives me the greenlight to sell the product. If later independent testing finds that the product is contaminated in some way, then the first person I'm going to take that up with is the LAB, which provided me with passing results. And they are the ones who should bear the responsibility of recalls, product destruction costs, lost sales, etc (but they don't, that's up to the brand). Also, the state that certifies these labs should be the shutting down the labs that consistently provide incorrect results.

The other point, which I've made before, is that the cannabis industry is one of the most disproportionately overregulated industries in the U.S. and this overregulation and cost of compliance is one of the reasons why the cannabis industry in CA is failing. Yes, I agree with the LA Times article that the pesticides found after independent testing should be added to the list of regulated chemicals, and should not be found in vape products at all. BUT, even the article states that the initial 45 pesticides regulated by the DCC were "ON A PAR WITH TOBACCO STANDARDS." So sure, let's make sure that these pesticides shouldn't be in vape products, but let's also meet the same requirements that other industries need to meet.?

As you might be familiar, I spent a long time working in CPG before entering the cannabis industry. And let me just tell you, we in the food world DO NOT need to meet the stringent testing requirements of the cannabis world. I once wrote an article to pose the question "Is Legal Cannabis Safer than Baby Food" that attempted to address this question, and even baby food does not go through the rigorous testing and requirements that we have to meet in the regulated cannabis industry.

I will also tell you a couple of stories. Back when I worked at a particular edibles company, we were making our most popular product, which contained a number of added ingredients, including chamomile and lavender. Before we sent this product out for testing, we did something called WIP testing (pretty common in the industry - it's to check that the product will pass testing before it goes to the distributor and final testing takes place). The problem was, our product came back positive for pesticides, which was weird, because we always independently tested the bulk oil before using it in our products, and the oil we used had passed testing. We went back and tested the batch of bulk oil. It was clean. Was it the lab that had contaminated machinery, what was causing the testing fail??? And finally we figured it out - the chamomile had pesticides in it. IT IS NOT STANDARD PRACTICE BY SMALL TO MIDSIZE FOOD MANUFACTURERS to test for pesticides or microbial activity in food ingredients. There aren't any legal requirements for testing of finished product, there are no COAs required, there's just an assumption that these food ingredient inputs are safe. And that is across the food industry.

I'll also recall the story of Clif Bar many years ago (I don't know if this is still the case since Mondelez bought Clif). But Clif Bar used to use brown rice syrup in their bars. The thing is, brown rice is a great bio remediator, and it would absorb environmental arsenic, which then got concentrated when refined into syrup. We jokingly called them arsenic bars. Most consumers don't know about this, or really what is actually in the food that they eat, because unlike cannabis, there is no legal testing requirement, no required COA to sell their products on their shelves for millions to eat.

So my point is this. It's so easy to target the cannabis industry. And yes, I agree, let's make sure that the products that consumers are safe and abide by the law. But it's so much more nuanced than people make it. AND, it is consistently unfair for us to continue to meet standards and regulations that are far above those put out for other industries to follow. FYI, those industries have a lot more money and lobbying power than the cannabis industry. So rather than just pointing fingers at the cannabis industry, why don't we do the enforce the same for everyone else?

#cannabisindustry #california