Cannabis lab operator calls for expanded testing requirements and enforcement

(This story first appeared in the November-December issue of MJBizMagazine.)

Family-owned and -operated Anresco Laboratories has been testing food products since its founding in 1943 by Sylvan Eisenberg, a chemist and Stanford University Ph.D.

San Francisco-based Anresco, named after the acronym for analysis, research and consulting, began testing cannabis in 2015.

Today, its chief operating officer and the company founder’s grandson, Zachary Eisenberg, chairs the Cannabis Science Section of the American Council of Independent Laboratories (ACIL), a

Washington, D.C.-headquartered trade association for testing labs.

In that role, Eisenberg and other labs conducted research into potency inflation that confirmed suspicions about the practice occurring – even in regulated marijuana markets with mandatory testing protocols.

The investigations also found that many cannabis products were contaminated with pesticides.

Later, Anresco and another California lab were tapped by the Los Angeles Times and WeedWeek to assist in their investigation of marijuana products cleared for sale by state-regulated testing labs.

Eisenberg spoke with MJBizMagazine about pesticides and potency manipulation, what can be done to solve these problems and the backlash he’s faced for being a whistleblower.

How did Anresco first learn about potency inflation and illegal pesticides in regulated cannabis?

There’s potency inflation, and then there’s contaminant misreporting or misanalysis.

It’s widely understood in the industry that potency inflation occurs.

It’s an inevitability that if consumers pay more for higher-potency products, the cultivators and distributors are going to put pressure on laboratories to provide higher (THC) results.

Potency inflation is pretty rampant – especially for flower products and extracts.

As chair of the ACIL Cannabis Science Section, we were heading an initiative to determine the extent to which potency inflation is occurring in California, and it was pretty gross what we found.

As part of that study, which we conducted with a variety of other laboratories, we also found that there were pesticides in some of the samples we were analyzing.

Similarly, in our own personal experience, we’ve had customers that said, “Oh, you’re finding pesticides in our products, and other labs aren’t. So, we’re going to start using those labs instead.”

So, we had an idea that there were likely pesticides being misreported to the DCC (California’s Department of Cannabis Control).

Whether that was intentional or not, we weren’t entirely sure.

It was only more recently, when we started testing samples from store shelves and then partnering with the L.A. Times, that we really appreciated the extent to which pesticides are intentionally being introduced into cultivation.

Does the DCC’s list of 66 prohibited substances cover everything for which labs should be running tests?

No. What is currently required is insufficient.

That’s not to say that the DCC did a bad job coming up with their list when they published it several years ago.

They had far more analytes than Colorado and Oregon were requiring – it was state of the art at that time.

But when people know what you’re testing for, they also know what you’re not testing for.

What the L.A. Times article brought to light is the fact that people are using non-DCC (banned) pesticides because they know they’re not going to be caught – or they didn’t think they were going to be caught.

There has to be screening – perhaps by a regulatory body and/or private laboratories – for new compounds.

And there has to be a process for modifying the list over time to protect public health.

How difficult is it to manipulate testing equipment, and what enforcement can be done?

You’re describing a term known as dry-labbing, where a laboratory either doesn’t properly analyze the sample, or maybe they don’t analyze the sample at all, and they issue a result that’s erroneous.

In some cases, maybe those laboratories are just not capable.

Maybe they didn’t have the right instrumentation or the personnel or the methods to perform these analyses, and they just didn’t realize the pesticides were there.

We also know that there’s been a variety of enforcement actions taken against labs by the DCC in California and by other regulatory bodies in other states against labs that they found to be manipulating results.

When products are contaminated – whether intentionally or not – they need to be recalled to protect public health.

If people know there’s a potential that their product can be recalled if it has been found to have pesticide, and they know the DCC and/or other private laboratories are surveilling products for contaminants, they’re going to be far less incentivized to use pesticides going forward.

Likewise, when it comes to potency inflation or contaminants, if they know that the DCC is surveilling for those things, then maybe they’re not going to be so incentivized to pressure laboratories to provide inaccurate results.

What kind of feedback did you get from businesses after the investigation?

The brands that had products containing pesticides were probably not very happy they were being so directly called out by the L.A. Times.

We don’t make the decision whether to (identify) the brands or not.

In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever tried to throw a brand under the bus before.

But certainly, those brands are upset and a couple of them mentioned that (they believed) we are part of a conspiracy to take them out.

That was a little bit misguided on their part, but I understand that perhaps the article had economic consequences for their businesses, and they were upset as a result.

We’ve also come across companies that said, “We’re so happy that you brought this issue to our attention. We want to be proactive. We want to sell safe products. We’re sourcing from people, and we didn’t even know that we should be testing for additional compounds.”

One of the biggest selling points to buying regulated cannabis products is it’s supposed to be tested, and it’s supposed to be safe, and if that promise breaks down, then what’s the incentive to spend more as opposed to a black-market product?

Are you optimistic that this problem will be addressed and mitigated?

One hundred percent!

For a few years there, you were seeing potency inflation getting worse and worse.

Only after the L.A. Times article brought a lot of attention to these issues, the DCC is now being a lot more proactive in terms of the surveillance sampling and issuing recalls and finding the people who are intentionally doing things that are bad.

That’s a positive development. You’re also starting to see the industry start to regulate itself.

They’re actually calling it “Category 4” testing. The DCC has Category 3 testing, which tests for 66 analytes.

It’s great to see that the industry is being proactive and taking it upon themselves to assure that the products they’re selling to consumers are safe.

This interview was edited for content and clarity.

Omar Sacirbey can be reached at omar.sacirbey@mjbizdaily.com.