Marijuana Business Magazine January 2019

Marijuana Business Magazine | January 2019 88 FOCUS ONQUALITY CONTROL AND TESTING FROMTHE START— OR RISK HAVING YOUR BRAND SUFFER. Quality control and early testing are key in the production process from the get-go, according to Jason Hamilton, direc- tor of quality assurance and quality control at Texas-based Compassionate Cultivation, and Garrett Nicodemus, chief operating officer for Denver-based Xabis. They said many plant-touching companies overlook these steps early on when setting up new facilities, espe- cially makers of edibles and concentrates. “You want to make sure you assign a dedicated space in your facility. This needs to be included early, and don’t leave it out,” Hamilton said. Both MJBizCon speakers also warned against relying on labs that produce results desired by plant-touching compa- nies, as opposed to reality-based testing data. That’s because many plant-touching businesses are eager to get their prod- ucts to market—instead of ensuring their products are safe and labeled accurately. Doctored results can hurt a company’s brand in the long run, Hamilton and Nicodemus agreed. To avoid that, they said, steer clear of labs that brag about their client lists and the results they provide. Instead, look for labs that have some type of independent accreditation or at least validation of their processes. Also, seek out labs that are willing to share detailed information regarding their testing procedures and outcomes. “Transparency is binary,” Nicodemus said. “You should be looking at it as full disclosure or no disclosure.” Both men also emphasized that quality control is a company’s “best defense” against legal liabilities, audits, consumer complaints and other problems. – John Schroyer Extraction Processing/Manufacturer Example Purification Manufacturing Packaged Unit Storage TESTING TESTMULTIPLE SAMPLES FROM THE SAME PLANT AS A SINGLE BATCH—RATHER THAN INDIVIDUALLY. Laboratory testing of medical and recreational marijuana often is considered one of the industry’s weak points. Re- sults of potency analyses can vary widely, fueling rumors about growers who seek labs that inflate potency numbers and providing fodder for skeptics who still see cannabis as snake oil. But getting accurate and consistent test results is not as hard as it may seem, according to Chris Hudalla, co-founder and chief science officer of ProVerde Laborato- ries in Massachusetts. First, some background: It’s nearly impossible to get two flower samples from a single plant that will have the same exact potency results. Why? It’s well known among industry veterans that flower at the top of a cannabis plant will have more THC than flower from the bottom. Similarly, flower from one part of a plant will have different chemical characteristics than flower from another part. So, if two labs get two dif- ferent samples, the potency results will be different because the samples are different. To get around this, labs should collect multiple samples from different parts of a plant and then, rather than test them separately, combine the samples into one batch to be tested. The combined batches should yield averages of the different samples. Those samples may vary by a couple of percentage points. But in a world where every flower is a little different, that’s a reliable result, Hudalla said. “Labs should homogenize their samples because two samples can be very different,” Hudalla said. On the other hand, if the results of two batches from the same plant still vary greatly at two labs, then something else is probably at play. – Omar Sacirbey Testing Analytical Testing for Cannabis Analyte Analytical Technique Phytochemicals Cannabinoids GC, HPLC, UPLC, SFC Terpenes Headspace GC, GC/MS Water (Residual Moisture) Gravimetric, Water Activity Plant Gender (DNA)/Genetics qPCR, sequencing Contaminants Heavy Metals AA, ICP, ICP-MS, TXRF Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Headspace GC, GC/MS Mycotoxins ImmunoAffinity (IA) Assays, LC/MS Microbiological Contaminants Cultures, MPN, qPCR, Micro-Array Pesticides/Plant Growth Regulators LC/MS/MS, GC/MS/MS from Testing labs look for a variety of contaminants, terpenes and cannabinoid levels. Courtesy Photo Look for testing labs that have earned accreditation from a third-party agency. Courtesy Photo