It took Maine four years for its first recall of contaminated marijuana in the recreational market, but only two months for the second and third.

The Maine Office of Cannabis Policy has issued three recalls and one recall expansion for products that fail mandatory yeast and mold testing. More could come as the office ramps up inspection testing.

First reminder, The flower offering from Cannabis Cured was announced on September 10. Second recall And next expansion An announcement about Nova Farms’ products came shortly after, on October 11 and 24. Last memory, It was for the Leb City Greeneries marijuana released on November 7th. The recalls were all for smokable marijuana, ranging from flower and ground flower to pre-rolled and blunt marijuana.

The office has released little information about the recalls, including what specific yeasts and molds were found in the samples, the level of contaminants (the limit is 10,000 colony-forming units per gram) and how the products were brought to market in 2015. first.

MORE TESTS

While the recalls are still being investigated, the office said in an email Friday that the products were contaminated in one of two ways.

“Licensees either made errors in their sampling and/or use of remediation and pretreatment technology, or deliberately neglected their responsibilities in these areas,” the office said.

The agency said the office had recently increased efforts to conduct random inspection testing of products that passed initial testing, and that increase in testing led to two of the three recalls. The other was caught during an inspection process the office uses “to ensure products are appropriately sampled and tested.”

Not every marijuana product on a store’s shelf has been individually tested. Instead, growers and manufacturers are required to submit “representative” samples of each batch. Sample sizes vary by product and batch size and must be taken from more than one piece of the product. For example, sample sizes for hemp flower, pre-rolling and trimming range from 6.5 grams for a 2.5 kilogram batch to 22 grams for a 10 kilogram batch.

Yeast and mold are the most common contaminants that cause a sample to fail the test, and mold is the most difficult test to pass because it is so common in the natural world.

According to the Office of Marijuana Policy, growers are increasingly processing products before the first round of testing to reduce yeast and mold contamination. In some cases, they processed samples that responded better to treatment and were more likely to pass the test than larger batches.

“Under program rules, any sample is not permitted to be processed after collection from the batch,” the office said. “While OCP is confident that the vast majority of licensees are doing the right thing and meeting their regulatory responsibilities, audit samples and subsequent recalls have revealed that loopholes exist for some licensees.”

The office is working to produce educational materials and opportunities to reinforce best practices for sampling, processing, and curation.

Matt Hawes, co-founder of the Maine Cannabis Industry Association, isn’t dismissing the office for the latest recalls; He said the increase in testing signals a shift in priorities and that testing makes sense for a relatively new government agency.

He said recent recalls have created increased awareness in the industry about the tests, but that hasn’t always increased uneasiness.

“We don’t feel like we have anything to worry about,” he said. “I think the vast majority of adult-use operators sincerely do the best they can, but if there are cases where that is not true, I applaud OCP for finding them.”

A WARNING TO THE MEDICAL MARKET?

Industry members predict the office will use the latest recalls as evidence to support the need for testing in the medical market.

If yeast and mold are showing up in products in the heavily regulated adult-use market, where testing is mandatory, what could be showing up that isn’t happening in the medical market?

Last year, the office released a report claiming that up to half of the products sold in the medical marijuana market are. may be contaminated with pesticides, harmful microbes, yeast and mold.

The office collected 127 medical marijuana samples from recent inspections and put them through the same testing process required in the recreational use program. 57 out of 127 (or about 45%) would fail; This meant they contained at least one banned ingredient or substance.

John Hudak, director of the office of marijuana policy, has made clear that he would like to see test-and-track-and-trace mandates implemented in the medical market, but the idea has met fierce resistance from medical providers, known in the industry as caregivers. They argue that the requirements would be burdensome and costly, forcing them to either close the store or pass the price increases on to consumers.

Under a 2022 law, any major rulemaking by the department must be approved by the Legislature, and the Office of Marijuana Policy has not formally proposed a testing requirement for the medical market since then.

But industry members fear the increase in recalls is a sign that the office is preparing for another move.

But the office insists the two are unrelated.

“The current recall of adult-use products has no impact on the medical marijuana program, nor have these recalls impacted OCP’s views on existing deficiencies in the medical marijuana statute,” the agency said. “The office has been clear and consistent for more than five years that changes to medical marijuana legislation are needed to protect medical marijuana patients. The office’s proposed changes always included mandatory testing and inventory tracking. This continues to be OCP’s position.”

Many industry members, including Christopher Altomare, founder and CEO of Portland-based testing lab Nova Analytics, questioned the state’s threshold of 10,000 colony-forming units per gram and whether all the yeast and mold strains on the panel were actually harmful at that level. . Altomare said his lab plans to investigate this possibility.

Hudak, meanwhile, remained adamant that the state’s standards are sound. He said this is used by many other states and is the threshold recommended by the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia.

Either way, Mark Barnett, both a marijuana market operator and policy director for the Maine Craft Cannabis Association, said he fears the results “will lead to more fear-mongering about the dangers of marijuana.”

Barnett said the recalls are proof that mandatory testing can be intervened and the inspection system will be more effective.

“This is the only honest, scientific way to do this,” he said, noting that the last two recalls were caught this way.

“Contaminated products were found and I’m glad they were taken off the shelves (if they were dangerous),” he said.

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