Cannabis testing is an essential part of the cannabis supply chain. With the increasing demand for legal cannabis, many laboratories have started providing testing services for various stakeholders across the supply chain. However, there is no standard protocol for selecting a laboratory for THC testing.
In this article, we will discuss how to ensure your lab meets all necessary requirements and avoid any safety risks during the process of sampling and analyzing raw material samples taken from different sources before packaging them into finished products.
Follow these tips to ensure compliance with cannabis testing laws.
To ensure compliance with cannabis testing laws, you must select a laboratory that is certified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), licensed by Health Canada (or the equivalent in your jurisdiction), and has been approved by your state’s governing body. The USDA provides guidelines for laboratories that are certified to conduct tests on raw materials and final products submitted for sale at retail outlets.
The most important thing to remember when selecting a lab is that they should have experience working with cannabis products because they will be handling them during the testing process. If you’re planning on selling your own product or having someone else do so, then it’s important that you find a reputable company that knows how to handle these products safely!
Consider your Needs and Budget
In order to select the right laboratory for THC testing in cannabis, you need to consider your needs and budget.
- How much do you have to spend? The price of a test will depend on:
- the method used (eg TLC, HPLC or GC-MS)
- the number of samples tested (1 or 100 grams)
- whether they’re using a mobile testing device or not during sampling to improve representativeness
Ask about their Cannabis Testing Protocols and Methodology
When you select a company to test your cannabis, make sure they have an established testing protocol and methodology. This will help ensure that your samples are tested at the most appropriate time and with the best equipment available. The international gold standard for THC testing in a lab setting are those outlined in the ISO 17025 certification. The ISO 17025 certification is a guarantee that the lab you are considering has gone above and beyond expectations when it comes to quality and trust. Some more factors to consider:
- How often are tests performed?
- What is their turnaround time for test results?
- Do they have a quality control program in place?
- How do they prevent cross-contamination between different batches of product by ensuring that each batch is handled separately from others during processing (and ideally before)?
A reputable lab will have a quality control program that ensures the best possible results for every batch of product tested. They should also be able to provide you with their test results in a timely manner, and be able to explain them in terms that you can understand.
If you are looking for a cannabis testing lab, it’s important to research the options available in your area. You can find labs by searching online or asking around for recommendations from other growers and dispensary owners. Once you have found a few potential candidates, call them up and ask about their services and prices. The closer a lab is to your facility, the less likelihood there is that the product being sent for testing may degrade due to shipping and time constraints.
What are the Different Types of Cannabis Test Kits Available?
Test kits are available for THC potency, pesticides and microbial contaminants. They can also be used to test for terpene testing. Test kits can be purchased for dried flower, extracts, concentrates and edibles.
You should also know that some companies sell their products as “high THC cannabis” but the product being sold is not always represented by the label that contains it; rather than providing accurate lab results for their products, these companies simply rely upon sending many submissions to a lab and “cherry-picking” the one that comes back the highest.
This is why GemmaCert offers an accurate and reliable testing method that provides lab results for THC, CBD and CBG levels in minutes, no matter if it’s used in a dispensary or in industry distribution points. GemmaCert’s tests can detect the presence of 3 cannabinoids, and quantify them in 5 minutes without destroying the samples. GemmaCert uses artificial intelligence-enabled technology to provide accurate, and most importantly unbiased results. GemmaCert eliminates the need to worry about whether an industry operator is trustworthy and true to their word and the accuracy of their COAs; test yourself in 5 minutes and be certain about the product your company is handling!
How Do You Know if Your Cannabis Test is Accurate?
The most important thing to remember about testing is that each lab has its own standards for accuracy. This is why picking a lab that is ISO 17025 certified (an optional step labs can take to certify their standards and processes), brings their results level with those from other ISO-certified labs around the world.
Some cannabis operators send multiple samples to multiple labs and compare their results. While this makes sense, they must remember that the cannabis plant is heterogeneous (the distribution of chemical components varies from flower to flower), and as such, results will also vary. When sending multiple samples to various labs, growers must ensure these samples are representative of their batch. This, in turn, may result very expensive for growers as high amounts of cannabis will be destroyed during testing.
On the other hand, some GemmaCert customers have started testing their product inside their facility before being sent to the lab and comparing results from the COA. This presents and interesting opportunity, as GemmaCert users are able to produce hundreds of data points on their product’s potency in a matter of minutes. This allows them to first and foremost, understand the potency distribution of their genetics and the impact of their processes on the final product. Furthermore, it allows them to compare whether labs being considered for contracting are under or overestimating results. This variance is very important to understand, since in the current state of the industry lab COAs are impacting the sales velocity of any given batch.
GemmaCert’s Pharmacopoeia-compliant technology was developed in an ISO 17025 certified lab, with the aim of bringing forward a new level of standardization to the wild west that cannabis testing currently is. GemmaCert’s objective is straight-forward: enable anyone in the value-chain to produce accurate and unbiased results in minutes for products that will get consumed and not destroyed during testing. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about how to utilize data from the field to improve your operations, find efficiencies and increase trust in your day-to-day activities, send the folk at GemmaCert a message!