doomed
2 hours ago
Home / Manufacturing / Testing
California cannabis brand West Coast Cure voluntarily recalls several products
author profile pictureBy Chris Casacchia, Staff Writer
Updated October 10, 2024
Get your pesticides from legit canna business for a little extra $$$.
West Coast Cure, one of the largest California cannabis brands engulfed in a monthslong pesticide scandal, has voluntarily recalled at least 20 products that contain impurities.
The products, packaged and manufactured by Shield Management Group or Alkhemist DM, which operates as West Coast Cure (WCC), were recalled for “potential adulteration,” according to a notice posted by the state’s Department of Cannabis Control (DCC).
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The recalled products include pre-rolls, all-in-one vape devices and vape cartridges sold in 280 retail locations across the state.
Nearly all the products were packaged at least a year ago, which is a common shortcoming related to recall alerts industrywide, according to a recent MJBizDaily analysis highlighting the challenges retailers face in pulling such products from the shelves before they’re sold to customers.
‘No admission of wrongdoing’
Orange County-based WCC did not respond to an MJBizDaily request for comment.
But in a Tuesday news release, WCC reiterated that all its products passed compliance tests, a position it has expressed for months to media outlets such as MJBizDaily.
The company said state regulators have continued inquiries about various products that were linked to illegal pesticides in a Los Angeles Times/WeedWeek report in June.
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“Rather than continue to drag the matter out, West Coast Cure has decided to put it to rest and voluntarily recall all of the remaining products,” the company said in a statement posted on its website.
“WCC understands that there are self-interested people who may try to spin this decision in a negative light. But make no mistake: this decision is not an admission of any wrongdoing.
“West Coast Cure continues to dispute all allegations made by people who WCC believes are doing this for financial gain.”
Several more WCC products were in the process of getting recalled by the Department of Cannabis Control, sources with direct knowledge of the situation told MJBizDaily.
Ongoing concern in California
The developments have eroded confidence in the world’s largest regulated marijuana market and renewed concerns about the reliability of lab testing, cultivation practices and the state’s required track-and-trace system.
In the past few months, the DCC has issued several recalls of West Coast Cure products, primarily for allegedly containing the banned pesticide chlorfenapyr, which typically is sprayed directly on leaves to combat caterpillars, fungus gnats, mites and other pests.
WCC’s parent company last month filed a petition to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims the operator skirted state regulations and sold unsafe vape products that contained banned pesticides.
doomed
6 days ago
Is Marijuana A Diabetic’s Answer To Alcohol
mm
By:
Amy Hansen
October 4, 2024
CannabisFeaturedMedical MarijuanaNewsRXWellness
Is Marijuana A Diabetic's Answer To Alcohol
Alcohol and mixers are always a bit a wild card if you are a diabetic, maybe cannabis can help.
Being a diabetic can be tough and you always must be aware of your blood sugar. Today, there are programs which monitor the levels and gives alerts if things are too bad. Cocktails and some other alcohol and can be full of sugar, which can play havoc with a body. Additionally, alcohol consumption can worsen diabetes-related medical complications, such as disturbances in fat metabolism, nerve damage, and eye disease. But cannabis, well, that is a different story – and it seems the knowledge it catching on. So is marijuana a diabetes answer to alcohol?
RELATED: Science Says Medical Marijuana Improves Quality Of Life
Marijuana use is becoming more common for diabetics. A recent study estimated that 9% adults with diabetes used cannabis in the last month, a 33.7% increase with nearly half (48.9%) of users were younger than 50 years. Cannabis use is also increasing among Boomer (65 and older), many of whom have diabetes and other chronic conditions.
Photo by Lepro/Getty Images
Alcohol consumption is taking a hit as more people consume marijuana. Gen Z is drifting from alcohol and consuming more. California sober has become a trend. The AARP has said cannabis has medical benefits, but what about using it as a full or partial replacement of alcohol? Cannabis is
For diabetic, drinking alcohol can cause low or high blood sugar, affect diabetes medicines, and cause other possible problems. The liver releases glucose into your blood stream as needed to help keep blood sugar at normal levels. The liver releases glucose into the blood stream help keep blood sugar at normal levels. When drinking alcohol, the liver needs to break down the alcohol. While the liver is processing alcohol, it stops releasing glucose. As a result, blood sugar levels can drop quickly, making a risks for low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
RELATED: Biden Administration Puts A Knife Into The Cannabis Industry
While over indulging is never good, moderate vaping can avoid the sugar and carb intake received from alcohol and especially cocktails. Microdosing has also become popular.
Two important notes, there needs to be more research on dosage and use. Also, cannabis could use could increase the risk for diabetic ketoacidosis for people with type 1 diabetes. Research showed it was primarily due to worse management of diabetes, including increased intake of high-carb foods and forgetting to take medications.
doomed
1 week ago
Recalls hurts government bunk weed bottom line?
No problems!
They simply stop testing it…
The word has been out for years. Everybody knows it’s bunk.
Nsrr5 won’t touch it it’s so gross.🤮
Major marijuana markets still lacking controls for suspicious lab results
Chris Roberts, Reporter Forbes
October 1, 2024
The California Department of Cannabis Control revoked a commercial testing laboratory’s permit a month ago after tests at state-run labs discovered a harmful pesticide in marijuana the private lab had cleared for sale.
Many industry operators and a national association of state regulators consider oversight at so-called “reference laboratories” to be a best practice that should be standard in all state-regulated marijuana markets.
Absent reference laboratories, some states contract private, third-party labs to verify licensed cannabis labs’ compliance with safety standards as well as the reliability of THC-potency results.
But more than half of the country’s biggest marijuana markets do not have a reference lab, according to analysis by MJBizDaily, a glaring gap that critics say raises major questions about product labeling and safety.
Marijuana labs ‘cannot govern themselves’
“The cannabis testing lab markets have proven over and over again that they cannot govern themselves effectively – regulators have to provide a strong structure of governance and enforcement,” said Sarah Ahrens, president of Trichome Analytical, a New Jersey-licensed laboratory.
With regulated marijuana sales that could exceed $1 billion in 2024, New Jersey is one of the states lacking a reference laboratory to verify the safety and potency results of regulated marijuana products, according to the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), an organization representing state marijuana overseers.
Such oversight is a basic requirement to build confidence in the regulated market and steer consumers away from illicit cannabis, Ahrens said.
“I 100% believe in having an unbiased, accredited laboratory that is not licensed in the cannabis market to provide oversight services to state cannabis regulators,” she added.
“Without that – like what is happening in California right now with the pesticide contamination and THC-inflation scandals, lawsuits (and a) drop in legal sales – a market can crumble.”
States lacking reference labs
Clean and safe cannabis was one of the promises used to sell marijuana legalization to a skeptical canna experienced public…
However, allegations of “lab shopping,” in which retailers or product manufacturers seek a testing lab that will produce favorable results, have dogged the industry for years.
More recently, regulators have discovered faulty lab practices and taken action only after problems were revealed by reference labs.
As MJBizDaily reported, California’s Department of Cannabis Control has revoked the licenses of four commercial marijuana testing laboratories since December 2023 after running tests at two state reference laboratories.
Those labs, run by California’s departments of Toxic Substances Control and Food and Agriculture, discovered the commercial labs had inflated THC potency on batches sampled by as much as 50% and failed to discover banned pesticides.
The lapses by state-licensed labs led to subsequent product recalls and has shaken consumer confidence in product testing and labeling.
States with reference labs
According to CANNRA, the states that have regulated marijuana markets and are currently using a reference laboratory are:
California
Colorado
Florida
Iowa
Maryland
Montana
New Mexico
New York
Oregon
Utah
Washington
West Virginia
In Colorado, regulators set up a reference laboratory in 2017 “as part of deliberate efforts to mitigate risks of inconsistency and inaccuracy of test results in private labs,” Heather Krug, the regulatory programs branch chief at the State Public Health Laboratory, told MJBizDaily via email.
“This approach has led to improvements of the entire testing program, including the accuracy and defensibility of test results,” she added.
According to Gillian Schauer, CANNRA’s executive director, the following states are in the process of instituting reference labs:
Delaware
Illinois
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Oklahoma
Vermont
“We’ve seen an increase in states setting up and opening reference labs – in part because they can provide important checks and balances on the third-party lab-testing system and because they allow states to test products directly to gain a better understanding of potential issues and to support inspection and investigation,” Schauer told MJBizDaily via email.
States with large populations, regulated marijuana markets and no plans to open a reference lab include:
Arizona
Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Ohio
‘Secret shopper’ oversights
According to some critics, having a reference lab or a state contract with a third-party lab does not guarantee lab oversight.
In Massachusetts, the state Cannabis Control Commission had contracted with AtoZ Laboratories, a private lab, to test products selected off of store shelves through a “secret shopper” program.
But, according to a Friday report by The Boston Globe, the lab says state regulators have yet to send in any products for testing.
Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) fined multistate operator Holistic Industries after the company allegedly “knowingly” sold cannabis contaminated during a mold outbreak.
Notably, the situation came to light only after a whistleblower alerted authorities.
According to the CCC, the company sought out a lab that would perform tests that would overlook the mold.
Without reliable labs doing independent verification, critics say, the potency and safety profiles printed on legal cannabis products simply cannot be trusted.
“We definitely have no such lab here,” said Jeff Rawson, a Massachusetts-based scientist and frequent critic of regulators’ lack of testing oversight.
“The CCC is one of the worst for ignoring real problems in testing, avoiding our demands for more shelf tests and not recalling failed products.”
In some states, reference labs don’t appear to be pulling products from the shelves of marijuana stores to test product labels’ veracity, which raises questions as to what they are doing.
In New York, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has a memorandum of understanding with a state Department of Public Health lab at the Wadsworth Center in Albany.
However, “To-date, the testing conducted by Wadsworth has not been targeted at validating the reliability of permitted laboratory results,” OCM spokesperson Taylor Randi Lee told MJBizDaily via email.
“OCM has a regulatory framework in place to promote the integrity of the laboratory testing that is conducted such as demonstration of laboratory capability for receiving testing approval, proficiency testing, ISO accreditation requirements, and on-site inspections,” she added.
Lee did not respond to further questions.
Reference lab costs
In New Jersey, medical marijuana was tested by the state-run Public Health and Environmental Laboratory (PHEL), which ceased testing cannabis after the state began licensing private labs.
Ahrens said she is among the lab operators who “pressed the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission many, many times to use PHEL as a reference lab to better govern the testing market.
“But the CRC has not made moves to enable (PHEL), and the excuse we’ve been given is that the CRC does not have the funds available to pay PHEL for such services.”
While nssr5 waits…
Home / Legal
Major marijuana markets still lacking controls for suspicious lab results
author profile pictureBy Chris Roberts, Reporter
September 30, 2024
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Just Released! Get realistic market forecasts, state-by-state insights and benchmarks with the new 2024 MJBiz Factbook member program, now with quarterly updates. Make informed decisions.
Image of a petri dish swab at a cannabis lab
(Photo by Matthew Staver for MJBizDaily/Emerald)
The California Department of Cannabis Control revoked a commercial testing laboratory’s permit a month ago after tests at state-run labs discovered a harmful pesticide in marijuana the private lab had cleared for sale.
Many industry operators and a national association of state regulators consider oversight at so-called “reference laboratories” to be a best practice that should be standard in all state-regulated marijuana markets.
ADVERTISEMENT
Absent reference laboratories, some states contract private, third-party labs to verify licensed cannabis labs’ compliance with safety standards as well as the reliability of THC-potency results.
But more than half of the country’s biggest marijuana markets do not have a reference lab, according to analysis by MJBizDaily, a glaring gap that critics say raises major questions about product labeling and safety.
Marijuana labs ‘cannot govern themselves’
“The cannabis testing lab markets have proven over and over again that they cannot govern themselves effectively – regulators have to provide a strong structure of governance and enforcement,” said Sarah Ahrens, president of Trichome Analytical, a New Jersey-licensed laboratory.
With regulated marijuana sales that could exceed $1 billion in 2024, New Jersey is one of the states lacking a reference laboratory to verify the safety and potency results of regulated marijuana products, according to the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), an organization representing state marijuana overseers.
Such oversight is a basic requirement to build confidence in the regulated market and steer consumers away from illicit cannabis, Ahrens said.
“I 100% believe in having an unbiased, accredited laboratory that is not licensed in the cannabis market to provide oversight services to state cannabis regulators,” she added.
“Without that – like what is happening in California right now with the pesticide contamination and THC-inflation scandals, lawsuits (and a) drop in legal sales – a market can crumble.”
ADVERTISEMENT
States lacking reference labs
Clean and safe cannabis was one of the promises used to sell marijuana legalization to a skeptical public.
However, allegations of “lab shopping,” in which retailers or product manufacturers seek a testing lab that will produce favorable results, have dogged the industry for years.
More recently, regulators have discovered faulty lab practices and taken action only after problems were revealed by reference labs.
As MJBizDaily reported, California’s Department of Cannabis Control has revoked the licenses of four commercial marijuana testing laboratories since December 2023 after running tests at two state reference laboratories.
Those labs, run by California’s departments of Toxic Substances Control and Food and Agriculture, discovered the commercial labs had inflated THC potency on batches sampled by as much as 50% and failed to discover banned pesticides.
The lapses by state-licensed labs led to subsequent product recalls and has shaken consumer confidence in product testing and labeling.
States with reference labs
According to CANNRA, the states that have regulated marijuana markets and are currently using a reference laboratory are:
California
Colorado
Florida
Iowa
Maryland
Montana
New Mexico
New York
Oregon
Utah
Washington
West Virginia
In Colorado, regulators set up a reference laboratory in 2017 “as part of deliberate efforts to mitigate risks of inconsistency and inaccuracy of test results in private labs,” Heather Krug, the regulatory programs branch chief at the State Public Health Laboratory, told MJBizDaily via email.
“This approach has led to improvements of the entire testing program, including the accuracy and defensibility of test results,” she added.
According to Gillian Schauer, CANNRA’s executive director, the following states are in the process of instituting reference labs:
Delaware
Illinois
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Oklahoma
Vermont
“We’ve seen an increase in states setting up and opening reference labs – in part because they can provide important checks and balances on the third-party lab-testing system and because they allow states to test products directly to gain a better understanding of potential issues and to support inspection and investigation,” Schauer told MJBizDaily via email.
States with large populations, regulated marijuana markets and no plans to open a reference lab include:
Arizona
Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Ohio
‘Secret shopper’ oversights
According to some critics, having a reference lab or a state contract with a third-party lab does not guarantee lab oversight.
In Massachusetts, the state Cannabis Control Commission had contracted with AtoZ Laboratories, a private lab, to test products selected off of store shelves through a “secret shopper” program.
But, according to a Friday report by The Boston Globe, the lab says state regulators have yet to send in any products for testing.
Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) fined multistate operator Holistic Industries after the company allegedly “knowingly” sold cannabis contaminated during a mold outbreak.
Notably, the situation came to light only after a whistleblower alerted authorities.
According to the CCC, the company sought out a lab that would perform tests that would overlook the mold.
Without reliable labs doing independent verification, critics say, the potency and safety profiles printed on legal cannabis products simply cannot be trusted.
“We definitely have no such lab here,” said Jeff Rawson, a Massachusetts-based scientist and frequent critic of regulators’ lack of testing oversight.
“The CCC is one of the worst for ignoring real problems in testing, avoiding our demands for more shelf tests and not recalling failed products.”
In some states, reference labs don’t appear to be pulling products from the shelves of marijuana stores to test product labels’ veracity, which raises questions as to what they are doing.
In New York, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has a memorandum of understanding with a state Department of Public Health lab at the Wadsworth Center in Albany.
However, “To-date, the testing conducted by Wadsworth has not been targeted at validating the reliability of permitted laboratory results,” OCM spokesperson Taylor Randi Lee told MJBizDaily via email.
“OCM has a regulatory framework in place to promote the integrity of the laboratory testing that is conducted such as demonstration of laboratory capability for receiving testing approval, proficiency testing, ISO accreditation requirements, and on-site inspections,” she added.
Lee did not respond to further questions.
Reference lab costs
In New Jersey, medical marijuana was tested by the state-run Public Health and Environmental Laboratory (PHEL), which ceased testing cannabis after the state began licensing private labs.
Ahrens said she is among the lab operators who “pressed the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission many, many times to use PHEL as a reference lab to better govern the testing market.
“But the CRC has not made moves to enable (PHEL), and the excuse we’ve been given is that the CRC does not have the funds available to pay PHEL for such services.”
doomed
1 week ago
´´I will win this game - it is only a matter of time…´´
So…nssrs5 will win this game by investing in a company that has NO TRACTION, that grows bunk weed, is way overpriced and is UNTESTED
Home / Legal
Major marijuana markets still lacking controls for suspicious lab results
Chris Roberts, Reporter
September 30, 2024
The California Department of Cannabis Control revoked a commercial testing laboratory’s permit a month ago after tests at state-run labs discovered a harmful pesticide in marijuana the private lab had cleared for sale.
Many industry operators and a national association of state regulators consider oversight at so-called “reference laboratories” to be a best practice that should be standard in all state-regulated marijuana markets.
Absent reference laboratories, some states contract private, third-party labs to verify licensed cannabis labs’ compliance with safety standards as well as the reliability of THC-potency results.
But more than half of the country’s biggest marijuana markets do not have a reference lab, according to analysis by MJBizDaily, a glaring gap that critics say raises major questions about product labeling and safety.
Marijuana labs ‘cannot govern themselves’
“The cannabis testing lab markets have proven over and over again that they cannot govern themselves effectively – regulators have to provide a strong structure of governance and enforcement,” said Sarah Ahrens, president of Trichome Analytical, a New Jersey-licensed laboratory.
With regulated marijuana sales that could exceed $1 billion in 2024, New Jersey is one of the states lacking a reference laboratory to verify the safety and potency results of regulated marijuana products, according to the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), an organization representing state marijuana overseers.
Such oversight is a basic requirement to build confidence in the regulated market and steer consumers away from illicit cannabis, Ahrens said.
“I 100% believe in having an unbiased, accredited laboratory that is not licensed in the cannabis market to provide oversight services to state cannabis regulators,” she added.
“Without that – like what is happening in California right now with the pesticide contamination and THC-inflation scandals, lawsuits (and a) drop in legal sales – a market can crumble.”
Bunk weed bonanza
States lacking reference labs
Clean and safe cannabis was one of the promises used to sell marijuana legalization to a skeptical public.
However, allegations of “lab shopping,” in which retailers or product manufacturers seek a testing lab that will produce favorable results, have dogged the industry for years.
More recently, regulators have discovered faulty lab practices and taken action only after problems were revealed by reference labs.
As MJBizDaily reported, California’s Department of Cannabis Control has revoked the licenses of four commercial marijuana testing laboratories since December 2023 after running tests at two state reference laboratories.
Those labs, run by California’s departments of Toxic Substances Control and Food and Agriculture, discovered the commercial labs had inflated THC potency on batches sampled by as much as 50% and failed to discover banned pesticides.
The lapses by state-licensed labs led to subsequent product recalls and has shaken consumer confidence in product testing and labeling.
States with reference labs
According to CANNRA, the states that have regulated marijuana markets and are currently using a reference laboratory are:
California
Colorado
Florida
Iowa
Maryland
Montana
New Mexico
New York
Oregon
Utah
Washington
West Virginia
In Colorado, regulators set up a reference laboratory in 2017 “as part of deliberate efforts to mitigate risks of inconsistency and inaccuracy of test results in private labs,” Heather Krug, the regulatory programs branch chief at the State Public Health Laboratory, told MJBizDaily via email.
“This approach has led to improvements of the entire testing program, including the accuracy and defensibility of test results,” she added.
According to Gillian Schauer, CANNRA’s executive director, the following states are in the process of instituting reference labs:
Delaware
Illinois
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Oklahoma
Vermont
“We’ve seen an increase in states setting up and opening reference labs – in part because they can provide important checks and balances on the third-party lab-testing system and because they allow states to test products directly to gain a better understanding of potential issues and to support inspection and investigation,” Schauer told MJBizDaily via email.
States with large populations, regulated marijuana markets and no plans to open a reference lab include:
Arizona
Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Ohio
‘Secret shopper’ oversights
According to some critics, having a reference lab or a state contract with a third-party lab does not guarantee lab oversight.
In Massachusetts, the state Cannabis Control Commission had contracted with AtoZ Laboratories, a private lab, to test products selected off of store shelves through a “secret shopper” program.
But, according to a Friday report by The Boston Globe, the lab says state regulators have yet to send in any products for testing.
Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) fined multistate operator Holistic Industries after the company allegedly “knowingly” sold cannabis contaminated during a mold outbreak.
Notably, the situation came to light only after a whistleblower alerted authorities.
According to the CCC, the company sought out a lab that would perform tests that would overlook the mold.
Without reliable labs doing independent verification, critics say, the potency and safety profiles printed on legal cannabis products simply cannot be trusted.
“We definitely have no such lab here,” said Jeff Rawson, a Massachusetts-based scientist and frequent critic of regulators’ lack of testing oversight.
“The CCC is one of the worst for ignoring real problems in testing, avoiding our demands for more shelf tests and not recalling failed products.”
In some states, reference labs don’t appear to be pulling products from the shelves of marijuana stores to test product labels’ veracity, which raises questions as to what they are doing.
In New York, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has a memorandum of understanding with a state Department of Public Health lab at the Wadsworth Center in Albany.
However, “To-date, the testing conducted by Wadsworth has not been targeted at validating the reliability of permitted laboratory results,” OCM spokesperson Taylor Randi Lee told MJBizDaily via email.
“OCM has a regulatory framework in place to promote the integrity of the laboratory testing that is conducted such as demonstration of laboratory capability for receiving testing approval, proficiency testing, ISO accreditation requirements, and on-site inspections,” she added.
Lee did not respond to further questions.
Reference lab costs
In New Jersey, medical marijuana was tested by the state-run Public Health and Environmental Laboratory (PHEL), which ceased testing cannabis after the state began licensing private labs.
Ahrens said she is among the lab operators who “pressed the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission many, many times to use PHEL as a reference lab to better govern the testing market.
“But the CRC has not made moves to enable (PHEL), and the excuse we’ve been given is that the CRC does not have the funds available to pay PHEL for such services.”
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