The two most important requirements of selling cannabis products is that they should have no more than 0.3% Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and must be free from harmful components, such as pesticides and heavy metals.
In the cannabis industry, one would expect that all players are committed to quality, but concerns have emerged about some products bearing wrong information in their packaging or ads.
For example, it is not uncommon to find a cannabis product with cannabinoid level that is different from what given in ads. For others, suppliers do not indicate the levels of harmful components, such as pesticides.
Therefore, you should make sure that the products are tested by an accredited third party laboratory, making it easy for you to identify and stock only high-quality hemp products. In this post, we take a closer look at pesticide testing in third party laboratories .
How Pesticides Get into Cannabis Products
Before we can look at the dangers associated with pesticides, it is important to start by understanding how they get into the cannabis products.
Most pesticides get into the hemp plant when growing in the field. During a common cannabis growing cycle, farmers use a number of chemicals, such as herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, which are aimed at boosting the yields and keeping pests away.
Although these chemicals might be allowed for use in the field, they are harmful if they get into the human body. This is why you should always test the cannabis products to avoid selling harmful products to your clients.
Dangers Associated with Common Pesticides
The problems associated with using cannabis products that contain harmful pesticides are severe and can be fatal in some cases. Here are common problems associated with pesticides:
- Bifenazate: This is one of the common components used to prepare fungicides. When it accumulates in the body, Bifenazate can have mutagenic implications.
- Daminozide: This is another common pesticide used when growing hemp plants, especially in greenhouses. In high quantities, this pesticide is known to be carcinogenic.
- Cyfluthrin: This is another common insecticide that can cause issues such as vomiting, nausea, and migraines. The insecticide can also worsen the problem of asthma.
As you can see on SanteLabs.com, the impacts of having insecticides in cannabis products can be severe, and you should put every effort into stocking pesticide-free cannabis. As you focus on quality, make sure also to keep your eyes trained on addressing COVID-19. The pandemic, which broke out in March of 2020, has had devastating impacts on the society. By early July 2020, the global infections had hit 12 million and deaths were in excess of 500,000.
Compliance Testing in Third Party Laboratories
While it is true that the Farm Bill largely targets keeping THC in cannabis products at less than 0.3%, there are some states, such as California, which recommend that your products should be tested for pesticides.
Note that compliance testing does not just check for pesticides, but also looks at the presence and levels of other harmful components, such as heavy metals and organic solvents. To have your product tested for pesticides, you do not need to take the entire stock.
Instead, you should only pick a sample or several and consider them representative. Then, send it for testing in a third party laboratory. The sample is taken by scientists in the lab and dissolved to release all the ingredients for testing. Finally, the presence of insecticides and their level are determined using LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS technologies. Using these two technologies, it is possible to test over 66 pesticides that are commonly used in most farms.
When working in the cannabis niche, it is very important to ensure you only stock high-quality cannabis products, which is only possible by subjecting them for further testing in a third party laboratory. Remember to only work with accredited laboratories.
