The Regulatory Landscape and Creating a Cannabis Standard

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Analytical Cannabis

The cannabis lab testing space has faced several challenges over the last year– a volatile regulatory environment, lack of standard methodologies, the vaping epidemic, accusations of inconsistency and unscrupulous ethical practices as well as tremendous pressure on pricing as testing becomes increasingly commoditized. These challenges will be detailed and discussed in this presentation. In California, the proposed consolidation of the three cannabis agencies into a single cannabis regulatory authority may present an opportunity to provide input on current testing regulations. California testing regulations have been used template for other states, therefore, successful changes have a chance of being adopted across the nation. Despite some valiant efforts, it has become clear that the creation of standard analytical methodologies will take more time and effort due to the number of tests and matrices involved. Many labs still view their methods as trade secrets or IP which makes them wary of sharing too many details. A more practical pathway to standardization would be in creating specific requirements for the cannabis industry and defining validation parameters clearly. In addition to discussing the challenges in the cannabis testing industry, this presentation will also cover the opportunities for improvement and standardization. This talk was presented by Dr Swetha Kaul at the Analytical Cannabis Online Expo 2020.