Frederick, MD– The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) completed its first cannabis testing accreditation for Legend Technical Services, Inc., based in St. Paul, Minnesota. A2LA assessed the laboratory to ISO/IEC 17025 which include the general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. The laboratory is now able to test medical cannabis in compliance with Minnesota’s Medical Cannabis Registry Program.
The American Assocation for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA)
Their scope of accreditation (certificate 2950.01) will include testing for cannabinoid potency and profile, terpenes, pesticides, residual solvents, Mycotoxins, heavy metals and analyzing aerobic bacteria, yeast and mold, E. coli, Salmonella and gram-negative bacteria in medical cannabis products.
Roger Brauninger, biosafety program manager at A2LA
According to Roger Brauninger, biosafety program manager at A2LA, this bodes well for cannabis laboratory standards in the future. “We are pleased to provide accreditation to cannabis testing laboratories and recognize the potential international standards have to help ensure safety of all legal products entering the marketplace,” says Brauninger. “Legend Technical Services, Inc.’s accreditation with A2LA recognizes their commitment to providing the highest quality laboratory services and confidence in the safety of cannabis products that they test.”
A2LA’s cannabis accreditation program aims to establish a set of standards for quality in testing for cannabis edibles, concentrates and flower. Many states where cannabis is legal require ISO/IEC 17025 for cannabis laboratories as a baseline standard.
Nic Easley, chief executive officer at Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting (3C), delivered the keynote address at the first annual Cannabis Labs Conference, co-located with Pittcon. Easley begins with a discussion of the 2014 milestone where Colorado and Washington legalized recreational cannabis, opening the floodgates for a diverse range of products and business opportunities in quality and safety testing. With members of his team sitting on the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide working group, they are working with industry leaders and regulators to comprehensively write the standards. “The industry gets regulated in 2014 in Colorado with a total of $2.7 billion in sales in the first year of the industry’s history,” says Easley. “We have this giant influx of business, but without process validation, good agricultural practices and proper SOPs, each state is left to fend for themselves to write regulations.”
Studying cannabis genetics is a convoluted issue. Strain classification, medicinal effects and plant breeding are particular areas in the science of cannabis that still require heavy research. Marigene, a company researching cannabis genetics, is currently working with universities and research institutes to help map the cannabis genome and catalog genetic variation.
CJ Schwartz, Ph.D.
According to CJ Schwartz, Ph.D., chief executive officer and founder of Marigene, their mission is to “to classify, certify, and improve cannabis.” After studying genetics and cellular biology at the University of Minnesota, Schwartz received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin. His research in the past decade has focused on genetic variations that control flowering time, discovering the expression of a gene called Flowering Locus T leads to differential flowering time of plants and is dependent on their native locations. We sat down with Schwartz to learn more about his research and collaborative efforts.
Cannabis Industry Journal: Why are you researching mapping the cannabis genome?
CJ Schwartz, Ph.D: We seek to identify the genetic differences among cannabis strains and the genes responsible for these differences. Genetic differences are what cause different strains to have different effects. DNA allows reproducibility, consistency, and transparency for your cannabis strains.
The more information we gather about cannabis genetics, the more tools we have available to create tailored strains. Cannabis is a targeted compound. It interacts with a very specific system in the human body, similar to hormones, such as insulin. Understanding the cannabis genome will help bring legitimacy and integrity to cannabis products, and allow us to better understand how chemicals from cannabis interact with the human brain. Genetic identification can provide a method of certification to more comprehensively describe plant material.
Schwartz doing sample preparation on the lab bench.
CIJ:How did you get involved in cannabis research?
Schwartz: My interest in cannabis guided my research career. Cannabis may not be a cure-all, but it has significant and measurable medicinal effects for many patients.
To allow true development of cannabis products, we need more science! Our genetic analysis is required for normalization and acceptance of cannabis products, but also essential for future breeding efforts to develop better and more useful plants.
Our sister company, Hempgene, is applying all of the same technology and techniques for hemp research. One focus of Hempgene is to manipulate flowering time in select hemp cultivars so that they mature at the appropriate time in different environments.
CIJ:What do you hope to accomplish with your research?
Schwartz: We can develop or stabilize a plant that produces a very specific chemical profile for a specific condition, such as seizures, nausea or pain. By breeding plants tailored to a patient’s specific ailment, a patient can receive exactly the medicine that they need and minimize negative side effects.
The current term describing the interaction of cannabis compounds is called the entourage effect. Interactions among compounds can be additive or synergistic. The entourage effect describes synergistic effects, where small amounts of compound A (e.g. Myrcene) vastly increase the effects of compound B (e.g. THC). Instead of flooding one’s body with an excessive amount of chemicals to get a non-specific effect, cannabis plants can be bred to produce a very specific effect.
A view of some of the work stations inside the laboratory at Marigene.
Currently our goal is to catalog the natural genetic variation of cannabis, and to identify DNA changes that affect a trait of interest. Once superior variants of a gene are identified, those variants can be combined, by marker-assisted breeding, to produce new combinations of genes. How different cannabis chemicals interact to produce a desired effect, and how different human genetics influence the efficacy of those chemicals should be the ultimate goal of medical marijuana research.
We are working closely with academic institutions and chemical testing labs to gather data for establishing correlations between specific cannabis strains and desirable chemical profiles. Our closest collaborator, Dr. Nolan Kane at UC-Boulder, is working to complete the Cannabis genomic sequence and generate the first high- resolution cannabis genetic map.
We are currently accepting samples and we produce a report in roughly two to three months. For one sequencing run, we identify 125 million pieces of DNA that are 100 base pairs long. We get so much information so there is a considerable time commitment.
With multiple states now requiring third-party certification as part of licensing cannabis laboratories, there is a large role for laboratory accreditation in the cannabis industry. Using method validation can prove that your data is reproducible and that you have robust methods for sample preparation and calibration. All of these tools are instrumental in getting a laboratory accredited.
Amanda Rigdon, associate marketing manager for GC columns at Restek
Amanda Rigdon, associate marketing manager for gas chromatography columns at Restek, Inc., will deliver a presentation, Opportunities and Challenges for Method Validation in the Evolving Cannabis Industry, at the first annual Cannabis Labs Conference taking place this March 9th in Atlanta, Georgia. The Cannabis Labs Conference will be co-located with the third annual Food Labs Conference and the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Scott Radcliffe, technical support scientist at Romer Labs, Inc.
In her presentation, Rigdon will discuss established validation guidelines from a variety of regulatory bodies. “Method validation is absolutely critical to the cannabis industry,” she says. “Accurate test results not only help to protect consumers, but because of the high dollar value of cannabis products, accurate results can also protect producers from false positives, and laboratories in backing up their results.” She will also be sharing actual validation data from a number of cannabis analytical methods.
Scott Radcliffe, technical support scientist at Romer Labs, Inc., will share his validation methods of immunoassays for the detection of pathogens and mycotoxins in cannabis. He will include a discussion of specific rapid pathogen detection methods for Salmonella and E. coli O157 species. This will cover their small-scale validation studies with partner labs in Michigan and Washington for immunoassays.
Stephen Goldner, Esq, founder of Pinnacle Laboratory and Regulatory Affairs Associates
Stephen Goldner, Esq, founder of Pinnacle Laboratories, will discuss how cannabis labs can apply FDA lab practices with recommendations for short and long term management implementation. Goldner’s presentation will include a discussion of preparation for FDA involvement in sate regulatory systems.
Beyond validation methods in laboratories, the Cannabis Labs Conference will feature several presentations on ISO/IEC 17025:2005 compliance, the need for standardization, seed-to-sale traceability, FDA best lab practices and cannabis quality. Nic Easley, chief executive officer of Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting (3C), will deliver the keynote presentation on the role of quality assurance in the cannabis industry.
I had the pleasure of visiting the famous Dr. Raphael Mechoulam last month at his Hebrew University office just outside of Jerusalem, Israel. For those who may not have heard of him, Dr. Mechoulam is essentially the godfather of the endocannabinoid system. He is best known for his work in isolating and totally synthesizing delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Dr. Mechoulam is one of the leading recognized scientists in our field. Much of his work is focused on the nervous system, specifically how various acids, and particularly cannabinoids, bind to the nervous system and thus their effect on humans.
Dr. Mechoulam is a humble man whose energetic demeanor belies his age. He speaks six languages and continues working regularly even at the age of 86. His mind is as sharp as any 25 year old and, while our meeting was short, it lacked nothing in content.
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam (right) and Seth Wong (left) in the Dr.’s Hebrew university office.
His discoveries in cannabis have not been his only accolades and only represent about a third of his work in his accomplished life time. He has a vast number of papers and studies related to fatty and amino acids and their effect on the brain. The underlying principles of all of Dr. Mechoulam’s areas of study are similar and he has equally distinguished himself in these fields as he has in the realm of cannabis. Because of it’s taboo nature and the limited amount of sophisticated scientific research that cannabis has been subject to, Dr. Mechoulam is more widely recognized for this specific focus.
During our brief hour-long meeting, we discussed the impact of cannabinoids on cancer patients and bone marrow transplants, his cannabis research on schizophrenia as well as the role cannabis plays in diabetes patients – all topics on which he has volumes of published research but stressed the point that more research needs to be done; we have only scratched the surface.
Dr. Mechoulam is an inquisitive man who is always investigating, digging, and striving to understand more about the effects of cannabis, fatty, and amino acids on the brain. When asked what charge the cannabis and medical industries need to pursue, he stressed the need for more scientific studies to investigate the impact of cannabis not just on the brain but the entire human body, as well as the need for grants to help promote those studies. Dr. Mechoulam specifically stressed the importance that these studies employ scientific vigor in a responsible and legal manner.
He is man of high moral ground, inquisitive nature, and a thorough investigator. I am privileged and humbled to have met him and heed his call to bring sophisticated and responsible scientific studies to the forefront of the Cannabis Green Rush.
Innovations in technology used for cannabis research have the potential to lead to major breakthroughs and discoveries for the plant’s various applications. Software and information technologies are particularly useful for sorting through the tremendous amount of data required in medical research and the cannabis industry. Tímea Polgár, founder of CannaData, worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries previously as a molecular biologist and computational chemist.
Tímea Polgár, founder of CannaData
Her background in informatics, pharmaceutical research, molecular biology and chemistry brings her to the cannabis industry to study the plant in an herbal medicine context using high-tech informatics. Polgár, originally from Hungary, received her PhD from Budapest University of Technology and Engineering in pharmaceutical drug discovery. She has worked as a senior research scientist at Gedeon Richter in Budapest and as a senior molecular modeler at Servier, Inc. in Paris, France. After leaving the pharmaceutical industry, she began working at a startup called Chemaxon, a chemistry informatics company working on scientific business development. Polgár has worked for years in scientific business development, leveraging technology and knowledge to businesses, which brought her to work across multiple disciplines.
CannaData is essentially a software tool used to gather information on strain genetics, chemical components of different strains, molecular mechanisms of different strains and the medicinal effects. According to Polgár, the company plans to build a continuously growing data repository in conjunction with computational modeling and research in determining entourage effects to pinpoint how active chemical agents in cannabis interact. The tool will help scientists find areas of the plant that need more studying and areas that are inert. In addition to the database, CannaData will provide scientific analysis of data from seed banks, laboratories, clinics and other businesses collecting data in the cannabis industry.
A flowchart of the scientific concept behind herbal medicine research
Polgár’s organization is currently seeking investors to launch the project in hopes of connecting the cannabis industry, herbal medicine and computational chemistry for more accurate scientific research and understanding of the plant. According to Polgár, research and development of disease-fighting drugs has long had a narrow-minded approach. “Herbal medicine is very complex with numerous active chemical components. Recent technological and computational advancements have made it possible to study these chemical network interactions,” says Polgár. “The cannabis industry could provide a pioneering route for the novel concept of combining herbal medicinal research with information technology, furthering our molecular understanding of the benefits of cannabis.”
A flowchart breaking down the chemical composition of cannabis
Polgár believes that this type of research has the ability to help support standardization and quality control in the cultivation of cannabis. “We are linking technologies to herbal medicine and cannabis where there is a huge need to manage, extract and analyze data,” says Polgár. “Today, there are computational technologies that can manage this quantity of information required to model and understand herbal molecular mechanisms and we will be the first ones to do so on a commercial level.”
The technical concept of CannaData, depicting the utility of a data repository
Polgár’s organization is seeking investors looking to innovate in the areas of life sciences, pharmaceutical research and software development. Through bringing broad information technological solutions from research to the cannabis industry, CannaData hopes to serve analytical laboratories with chemical informatics software services. Ultimately, this project will serve the cannabis industry by analyzing data on strain genetics and known chemical profiles of cannabis, furthering scientific research on cannabis.
Living in a world of ever-increasing interdependence and an era of limited state government, financial and human resources, it is imperative that those charged with protecting the health and safety of patients and users of medical and recreational cannabis products leverage what private sector institutions and existing frameworks already offer in setting up quality standards for laboratory testing operations. That this moment arrives now – at a point where state governments are being tasked with undertaking the most significant change in the regulation of this substance whilst the federal government appears unwilling to play a substantial role – makes this partnership both inevitable and absolutely necessary.
Accreditation is an internationally accepted conformity assessment tool for ensuring laboratory competence and confidence in the accuracy and reliability test data. The accreditation infrastructure is well-established through accreditation bodies (ABs) and the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), supported by regional cooperative arrangements, including those of the Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC) and the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation (IAAC). ILAC functions as a forum for harmonization of laboratory accreditation procedures and policies, thus reducing technical barriers to trade and promoting laboratory accreditation as a mechanism for establishing confidence in testing facilities. ILAC MRA signatory ABs are recognized, through a rigorous peer evaluation process, as competent to accredit testing organizations. All signatory ABs must meet the requirements of ISO/IEC 17011 and use ISO/IEC 17025 as the basis for accreditation of laboratories. In turn, under the ILAC MRA and the regional co-operations, competent laboratories are recognized globally, thus facilitating acceptance of the test results that accompany goods across international borders.
A map showing the mutual recognition agreements across the globe
In other areas, such as the food supply and energy, both state and federal government have been an active participant in accreditation activities. According to The Administrative Conference of the United States in its Agency Use of Third-Party Programs to Assess Regulatory Compliance*, “…agencies in diverse areas of regulation have developed third-party programs to assess whether regulated entities are in compliance with regulatory standards and other requirements. Through these programs, third parties are charged with assessing the safety of imported food… Third parties also ensure that products labeled as organic and energy-efficient meet applicable federal standards. In these regulatory third-party programs, regulated entities generally contract with third parties to carry out product testing and other regulatory compliance assessment activities in the place of regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies take on new roles in coordinating and overseeing these third-party actors.” While this reference largely deals with areas outside of cannabis regulation, it remains useful and relevant because of the manner in which cannabis products are used.
Traditionally, ABs have worked with regulators to establish specific technical requirements to supplement the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation framework. In this partnership, the AB is responsible for executing the assessment and accreditation process but the regulator retains responsibility for the ultimate decisions on the acceptance of that organization’s accreditation. In the example of our food supply and its various sources, governmental recognition of accreditation bodies operating in accordance with international standards is much more practical than government agencies themselves accrediting the individual testing organizations or ABs. Thus the public/private partnership paradigm: To assess regulatory compliance a Regulatory Agency approves ABs that accredit organizations that assess whether Regulated Entities or Regulated Products are in conformity with a Regulatory Standard.*
In this example, all of the organizations are treated equally by the regulatory agency since they use the same recognition criteria for ABs and the same accreditation requirements in the assessment of conformity assessment bodies. This approach would also provide consistency at a point in time where many states are grappling with trying to find the best quality standard to use and which, to date, has resulted in many different standards being chosen or considered for implementation. This is especially true when one looks at the requirements put into place by the “early adopter” states. However, in those states that have entered this area more recently, it seems clear that the consensus is use of ISO/IEC 17025 as the most appropriate quality management standard for testing laboratories.
There are many factors to consider when selecting a third party analytical laboratory:
Why are you testing?
Does a governing body require it?
Are you testing to meet compliance with industry trends?
Are you testing as supplemental protection to an in house laboratory operation?
Are your results being used to help you market your product?
Are the results being utilized for internal R&D?
What are you looking to get out of testing?
Perhaps it is a combination of all these things. Regardless, whomever you contract with for whatever reasons, it is important to understand what you are getting, know what you are entitled to, understand your results, and understand where you and your company remain vulnerable. You must also be prepared with a plan to handle adverse results. Testing at a third party analytical contract laboratory does not mean they assume all of your product’s or company’s liability, regardless of the lab’s reputation.
Ask your third party laboratory about any accreditations, certifications, and licenses that the lab should be accredited and/or certified for. Each state has different certifications and licensing requirements; make sure the entity you are using is licensed or certified for the services you need. Additionally, there is an accreditation called International Standards Organization (ISO) 17025 that is the pinnacle of third party laboratory accreditation. ISO 17025 is a set of protocols that your third party lab should follow to do everything it can to ensure your data is accurate and produced with reliable standards, control samples, matrix control samples and proficiency tests to verify the accuracy of the lab’s employees and methods, among a number of other criteria included in the standard. A number of different entities offer accreditation to ISO 17025 but it is important that the the accrediting body is also accredited to their ISO standard. Simply buying ISO 17025 compliant materials or standards does not mean that the vendor service or product is accredited to ISO 17025. Cannabis laboratories are just starting to implement and build systems around ISO 17025 but it has been prevalent in the third party lab business in many industries for decades and should be applied to the cannabis industry.
Visit your lab and understand their background and experience. Start by requesting a tour of the laboratory you choose; you want to know how things look behind the scenes. Is the lab orderly and doing its best to protect sample integrity? There may be a lot of things going on in the laboratory and it may look chaotic but it should be relatively clean. This prevents contamination and sample mix-ups. Further your relationship with your laboratory by understanding the laboratory’s experience and getting to know your laboratory staff. Consider the lab staff as part of your extended team, they are there to help you and help bring your product to market. The more they understand your goals, the more they can help.
Understand your lab’s history and background: Have they worked with products and/or analytes similar to yours? Have they worked with your sample matrix or one similar to it before? Their prior knowledge and laboratory experience, as it relates to your product, will help provide accurate data and navigate complex matrices.
Most importantly, a laboratory should be willing to release the data packet that is used to generate test results to the client. Releasing this data does not divulge any proprietary information of the lab. It is the laboratory’s job to provide you with the data upon request. It is important to note, looking at your raw data is not the same as looking at the laboratory method, also known as a work instruction or operating procedure. The lab most likely won’t give you the method as those are typically trade secrets, but there is no reason not to share with you the chromatography that the HPLC, GC, GC/MS, or LC/MS generated. This will demonstrate the lab’s sound analytical data and increase your confidence in the analysis you are receiving. When you pay for the results, you are also paying for your data and if your laboratory is not releasing that information to you at your request, you should be skeptical. This data needs to be able to stand up to audits and legal action.
Finally, confidentiality: your data is your data. Yes, you may have to report results to a governing body, but your laboratory should not be sharing your name and your data with anyone but your authorized list of contacts without your permission. They should not even disclose that you are their client without your prior authorization. Confidentiality is not just applicable to a few key employees at the laboratory, it is pertinent to everyone from the sample pickup driver, if you have one, to the chemists and upper level management.
Understanding your contract laboratory’s certifications, licenses, and accreditations, requesting and receiving raw data packages, and ensuring that you feel comfortable with the laboratory, its staff and their practices are key elements to ensuring a successful relationship with your laboratory.
GOAT Labs, Inc. is a veteran-owned, i502-certified cannabis testing company with laboratories in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon. The laboratory launched in 2010 by Dana Luce, the owner, with a personal mission to provide safe and tested cannabis to patients in need.
Dana Luce’s daughter, Dani Luce, CEO of GOAT Labs, has previous experience working in dialysis and watched cancer patients lose their battle to the illness. Many years later, Dani’s oldest son was diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin lymphoma. Cannabis proved instrumental in alleviating the side effects of chemotherapy. “With a severely compromised immune system, we had to find a place to test all the raw foods given to him, including cannabis,” says Dani Luce.
Dana Luce (left), owner of GOAT Labs, and Dani Luce (right), CEO, in the GOAT Labs office.
Dani Luce’s son was in remission nine months after starting chemotherapy in conjunction with cannabis and has now been in remission for five years. “We want to ensure patients are not ingesting something potentially toxic and that proper testing is done, which includes not only potency, but testing for microbials, pathogens, and pesticides.”
With pesticide use on cannabis recently entering the spotlight, there is a growing need for standards in cannabis testing. “We need better regulatory oversight so that all laboratories are standardized, including proficiency testing done by the state,” argues the Luce’s.
Bill Luce, lab technician at GOAT Labs, preparing samples for testing
Roger Brauninger, biosafety program manager of A2LA (American Association for Lab Accreditation), is working on an accreditation process for cannabis laboratories that would be accepted nationally. “We believe that an accreditation process would increase efficacy of lab results, reduce laboratory shopping, and create consistency with results across different laboratories,” says Brauninger.
GOAT Labs, among a number of other laboratories and organizations, is working toward putting cannabis in the lens of mainstream medicine. Not only are they looking to achieve a safe standard for medicine, they are advancing legalization efforts nationwide by setting the benchmark for getting patients access to safe, lab-tested cannabis.
Laboratory testing is an integral part of the cannabis industry for the same reasons it is important in the food industry. To ensure the consumer is ingesting a safe product, accurate testing should be required for microbials, pathogens, pesticides, heavy metals, and perhaps most importantly dosage. Unfortunately, however, the problem is that testing requirements are not quite there yet in the handful of states that have legalized marijuana for recreational or medical purposes. This creates a degree of uncertainty in the marketplace, which is detrimental to the growth of the industry as a whole.
Cannabis samples are liquified in strong acid in a pressurized microwave prior to evaluation for heavy metal content. Image courtesy of Digipath, Inc.
Lauren Finesilver, Executive Chef at Sweet Grass Kitchen, sits on a counsel for compliance with C4 (Colorado Cannabis Chamber of Commerce). Finesilver believes “We are a food manufacturer first and foremost so we need to ensure we sell a final product that is safe for the public and [one] that consumers know is coming from a responsible manufacturer.” Ahead of marijuana rule changes that are soon to come, Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) announced five new rulemaking working groups, one of which will address testing, packaging, and labeling.
Some states, including Colorado and Nevada, have made impressive strides in implementing proper testing regulations.
“Nevada has done a really good job from the start in designing a program where they have at least addressed some of the issues with product quality including testing, labeling, and potency requirements,” says Tobias Paquet, Chief Scientific Officer of C3 Labs, LLC (Cannabis Chemistry Consulting).
Paquet, who previously worked at Waters Corporation as a field chemistry specialist, cites potential contamination at almost every step of the cannabis supply chain from seed to sale. “Some of the biggest concerns with contamination during cultivation or extraction are pesticides, heavy metals, and microbial contamination,” he says, adding that he is most concerned about two microbial carcinogens—mycotoxin and aflatoxins.
“We aim to provide reliable and consistent labeling that is accurate and reflects the contents of that product,” says Paquet. “This comes with a validated method on qualified instruments and laboratory accreditation.”
Determining the moisture content in a dried cannabis sample for adjusting potency numbers and checking for appropriate curing. Image courtesy of Digipath, Inc.
Much like the food industry, accurate testing across the board is needed for consumers to feel safe ingesting edibles containing marijuana. Laboratories that operate in states where marijuana is already legal need to utilize good laboratory practices and standards to ensure consistency.
“We have been working to create an accreditation process that is accepted on a national level,” says Roger Brauninger, biosafety program manager at the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA). “Without firm state laboratory accreditation regulatory requirements in place, the possibility exists that people may shop laboratories to get the results they want. So if applied across the board, ISO 17025 accreditation would help reduce that, thereby helping to create greater consistency of tests results between laboratories, ultimately helping to reduce marketplace confusion.”
The cannabis industry has the momentum to become a safe and regulated marketplace as state reforms continue, with testing and analytics acting as the wind behind its sails.
Matt Karnes, founder and managing partner of GreenWave Advisors, LLC, suggests that by 2020, assuming full legalization occurs in all 50 states and D.C., the lab testing industry could easily reach $850 million (this figure includes testing, data analytics and consulting services). The firm provides an analysis of each state’s potential market size which is predicated on its U.S. retail marijuana forecast of $35 billion (again, assuming full legalization by 2020). Karnes was recently cited in a Forbes article suggesting that cannabis testing is one of a handful of top new technology investment opportunities.
Karnes’ predictions echo that of many when discussing the cannabis analytics space. “More states are becoming focused on standardized laboratory testing requirements,” he says. “There is really no consistency, which is something that needs to be worked out.”
While a handful of states work toward achieving good laboratory standards, players in the cannabis industry, including laboratories, dispensaries, and cultivators, continue to self-regulate when it comes to safety and quality.
CannabisIndustryJournal.com, our newest publication, will be launched in late September. CannabisIndustryJournal.com will educate the marketplace covering news, technology, business trends, safety, quality, and the regulatory environment, aiding in the advancement of an informed and safe market for the global cannabis industry. Stay tuned for more!
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
We use tracking pixels that set your arrival time at our website, this is used as part of our anti-spam and security measures. Disabling this tracking pixel would disable some of our security measures, and is therefore considered necessary for the safe operation of the website. This tracking pixel is cleared from your system when you delete files in your history.
We also use cookies to store your preferences regarding the setting of 3rd Party Cookies.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
