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LANSING, Mich. — Michigan cannabis customers want to get high, but the information they use to get there can be flawed, industry officials and regulators say. .
Test results, especially for THC potency, have a significant impact on the prices customers pay for commercial marijuana across Michigan and the profits retailers and producers make.
This is such an important factor that many industry participants believe that unscrupulous for-profit safety testing laboratories and marijuana producers engage in pay-to-play schemes and report potency for profit. I suspect that it is intentionally distorted. And safety laboratories seeking accurate results may be at a competitive disadvantage.
Ben Rossman, co-founder and CEO of PSI Labs in Ann Arbor, one of the first marijuana safety laboratories licensed in Michigan, said, “Providing accurate data is critical to our business.” “Never in a million years did I think it would lead to destruction.” “For a while, that accuracy helped us build a great reputation, but it turned out to be our demise.”
On December 8th, after eight and a half years of testing marijuana for contaminants and potency in Michigan, PSI Laboratories closed its doors.
Accuracy is “bad for business,” Rothman said.
According to Rothman, marijuana producers don’t demand accuracy, and once that is accepted, they engage in “lab shopping,” where they seek out laboratories for high-potency results, not for scientific acumen. It is said that he has begun to do so.
These THC amounts are printed on marijuana packaging labels, and depending on where the numbers fall, they can cost manufacturers thousands of dollars or turn a profit.
“In a sense, their hands were tied,” Rothman said. “Some people said to us, “We want to use you, we know your data is accurate.” We need to use the labs that provide the data.”
Drug dealers and retailers say MLive potency isn’t the best way to measure marijuana’s effects, but it’s one of the few metrics customers rely on.
“Regardless of the price, if the percentage is high, customers will come,” said Alex Doornbos, a manager at Quality Roots marijuana store in Battle. Creek.
Potency is the “biggest bargaining chip at the bargaining table” for marijuana producers and processors, Doornbos said, adding, “If it has a lot of THC, it’s going to fly off the shelves, That’s true up to this point.”
Doornbos said that while the number of high-potency strains considered to be marijuana with more than 28% THC is increasing, more notable is the disappearance of lower-potency marijuana. “Currently, any company is growing at less than 22% and it is difficult to increase sales.”
David Egerton, lab manager at Infinite Chemical Analysis Laboratories in Jackson, said some cannabis producers are taking the potency claims in stride.
He once had customers explicitly request increased potency in exchange for paying more.
“Sometimes it can be very bad,” Egerton said. “Typically the threat is something like getting out if you don’t get extra (percentage) points. We lost a customer over this. Trying to bend the rules to meet the customer’s demands. As long as there are people, this situation will continue.”
PSI Institute’s Rothman said this trend distorts the science and laboratory system’s mission to provide customers with safe cannabis and reliable information.
“We recognize that the demand for accuracy may not be as pronounced today in the licensed cannabis industry…” PSI Institute said in a letter to customers announcing the closure. I mentioned it inside. “The cannabis industry is stuck in a cycle of data manipulation, but we remain hopeful that we can break this cycle.
“While change may not be gradual, we are optimistic that the industry as a whole will one day embrace the transition to more honest and accurate data.”
Lev Spivak-Bahndorf, co-founder and chief scientific officer of PSI Labs, has long warned of potency inflation, telling MLive in 2022 that it is “an ongoing trend across cannabis in the United States.” “This is a long-standing, well-known problem.”
“I call this the efficacy inflation cycle,” he says. “People are looking for high potency, so stores are under pressure to provide it…That’s causing producers to look for the labs that give them the best results, and that’s why we… We are making lab shopping rampant like this.”
This problem is believed to exist in nearly every legal market in the United States. A peer-reviewed study published last April examined the accuracy of THC potency in marijuana sold in Colorado stores. The potency of 70% of the samples tested was found to be more than 15% lower than the amount listed on the package.
In Michigan, there isn’t much data on the extent of the problem.
An ongoing legal battle between the Cannabis Regulatory Authority (CRA) and Viridis Laboratories, which operates safety labs in Bay City and Lansing, has opened a small window into the efficacy issue in Michigan.
Since 2020, the CRA has been investigating how Viridis tests for THC potency, according to testimony, formal complaints and court filings. In its April 2022 complaint, the CRA said it audits all cannabis that tests for more than 28% THC. At the time of the complaint, the samples tested by Viridis accounted for 78% of all efficacy audits conducted by the CRA.
Through testimony in an ongoing hearing at the Michigan Office of Administrative Hearings and Regulations, which serves as a tribunal for matters involving government agencies, CRA officials said Viridis used unapproved testing methods to boost efficacy results. Said to be using.
CRA scientists determined that Viridis was able to put the kief, or resin, the term given to the sticky part of the plant containing large amounts of THC that is lost during sample preparation, back into the test vials to determine the potency of THC. He said the results were disproportionately elevated.
Viridis disagrees, arguing that its method is actually more accurate and representative of what consumers use. Although Viridis has obtained third-party certification from the agencies used by the CRA, the CRA claims that validation is still incomplete and the method remains unapproved.
“National cannabis experts have attested to the integrity and effectiveness of Viridis Institute’s methods, and we condemn the CRA’s incompetence, bias, and apparent desire to smear and tarnish Viridis Institute’s reputation. We look forward to the spotlight,” said attorney David R. Kennedy. Mr. Russell is the representative of Viridis.
Egerton and Rothman say the potency inflation problem is much bigger than a single lab. However, the CRA has not confirmed if other laboratories are investigating.
“The CRA does not comment on pending litigation, and while the CRA responds to every complaint it receives, it does not confirm or comment on potential investigations,” CRA spokesman David Hearns said in a statement. I can’t do that.” “The CRA recognizes the importance of testing in the cannabis sector and is committed to ensuring stakeholder confidence with the establishment of a state standards laboratory, scheduled to open by the end of 2024.”
In 2023, CRA announces plans to build its own laboratory for $2.3 million that can audit test results from private laboratories, assist in investigations, and help create standardized testing methods and oversight. did.
“Part of this is built into the standard practice that third-party laboratories should be guardians of consumer safety while also being commercial entities beholden to their customers. Something like that,” Egerton said. “So I think this problem will continue until there is a reference laboratory to double-check the research that they are doing.”
Rothman believes regulation, oversight and state-run labs are not enough.
“Right now, states are benefiting from tax revenue…” he said, “so there is an incentive not to enforce because states are making money from taxes.”
Rothman believes it will take a lawsuit similar to others brought in California over potency inflation to get producers and labs to take action.
“Change really happens when you impact stakeholders, because it’s not happening at the state level,” he says.
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