About 18% of California’s Cannabis Products Fail Lab Tests

Since the implementation of California’s new and stricter cannabis industry regulation, state licensed labs have tested 10,695 product samples. Around 18% of those failed requirements, which means that these products didn’t meet new standards.

However, the reasons for failure are not due to dangerous chemicals or contaminant levels. Most of the products failed because claims on the packaging didn’t match up against the actual product inside.

What is to blame?

The number one reason for failure was inaccurate packaging (1,279 samples), then go pesticides (403 samples), mold contamination (114 samples), residual solvents (99 samples), and foreign materials (6 samples).

The highest rate of failure belongs to edibles, tinctures, and lotions, while oils and waxes account for 20.4%. The lowest rate of failure goes to cannabis buds.

Summarised, only a third of the products didn’t pass the tests due to failure to meet health and safety standards. The rest failed due to the problems with labeling.

Worried by the testing results, California’s cannabis industry is trying to persuade authorities to roll back some of the stricter requirements of the new packaging and labeling rules.

Industry seeks rules changes

“Inaccurate claims on package labels” mean that the product’s cannabinoid content doesn’t match the CBD and THC quantities listed on the package. Other reasons include claims about origins, the misleading language of health benefits, and incorrect cultivation data.

Unless the product is cannabis bud, producers and retailer cannot merely re-label the product with correct information. By law, they have to destroy it. The industry demands an opportunity to re-label products and put them back on the shelves.

Another change is connected to manufacturing edibles. The culinary production makes “homogeneity” or consistent THC distribution in a batch of cannabis-infused edibles difficult. By law, THC content in such products is required to vary maximum up to 10% above or below the label information. The producers want the number to go up to 20%.

The industry continues to adjust the production and labeling to meet the strict requirements. Until establishing of the necessary routines, many products will end up in the dumpster. The industry is quite skeptical of this course of events; maybe the efficacy of the revised standards is not as expected. The only solution here is successful negotiations and a close dialog between regulators and the industry.

The post is based on this material.

(Sweedsy in no way encourages illegal activity and would like to remind its readers that marijuana usage continues to be an offense under Federal Law, regardless of state marijuana laws. To learn more, click here.)