Cannabis in Colorado: Company puts state-licensed labs to the test
Test results show state-licensed labs are using the same standards, despite previous concerns about consistency among labs.
Emerald Fields pot shop Vice President Jim Bent said there were concerns within the industry that labs were using different techniques to test edibles and getting different results.
Marijuana is not recognized at a federal level so there are no standards for testing established by the Food and Drug Administration. The state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division had to work with scientists and the marijuana industry to establish testing standards.
“Are we pulling from the same standards? That’s a question that should be asked,” said Bent.
Emerald Fields sells Canyon Cultivation products. The edible company’s owner, Morgan Iwersen, said it took years to refine its process to get the proper amount of THC in each edible. She said she would send her products to different labs and get results across the board.
“When we tested with these new labs, the results were all over the place so there was a huge variance from one lab to the next. And we are still finding that when we test with labs,” said Iwersen.
KRDO NewsChannel 13 worked with Emerald Fields to submit edibles to three state licensed labs to compare results. Emerald Fields took three chocolate bars from the same patch, took them out of the packaging, put them in new containers and sent them to the labs.
Each chocolate bar could have no more than 40 miligrams of THC. Results show all three labs produced similar results.
Lab 1 found 33.86 miligrams of active THC. The second lab found 31.4 miligrams of active THC. The third lab found 32.6 miligrams of active THC.
Michael Thompson is a scientist and Emerald Fields’ Director of Science and Technology. He said he was surprised by the results.
“I am absolutely pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that big of a difference,” said Thompson. “The labs are all testing slightly different but not so different that it’s a problem i guess. That’s almost expected from lab to lab.”
Bent said he sent marijuana buds to different labs about five years ago and found drastically different results.
“These test results that we have gotten back show we have made leaps and bounds in improvement of the laboratories here in Colorado and I tip my hat off to them,” said Bent.
Thompson said the results are impressive, but they could still improve.
“Will the state come out and make these guys standardized their machinery so that comes down to 2 or 3 percent, possibly, and that’s what I would like to see. It definitely could be more accurate from lab to lab, overall that’s not bad. A lot better than I expected,” said Thompson.
By the end of 2014, Colorado had licensed 16 labs across the state. There were 4,000 potency tests reported to the state’s regulatory system last year.
