The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Radiation is used on some cannabis products in CT
Under current Connecticut law, if a sample of cannabis intended for medical use is shown to have too high levels of microbes or mold, it cannot be remediated.
Some cannabis companies in Connecticut are getting around that regulation by irradiating every product before it gets sold, though that fact is not included on labels like it is in other states.
That may soon change. A provision in a sweeping piece of cannabis legislation under consideration would codify what those cannabis producers have been doing all along, and force companies to label any irradiated product as such.
Radiation is a widely used strategy to manage sometimes dangerous microbes in cannabis and other products, including food, but current Connecticut regulations are specific as to when that strategy may be used, particularly for medical cannabis.
“You’re not supposed to test, fail, then remediate for medical, but you could remediate right off the vine,” said president of Fine Fettle, Ben Zachs. “There are a lot of operators across the country who, to ensure they pass testing, will remediate no matter whether they need to or not.”
Not every cannabis cultivator in Connecticut uses radiation to ensure there are acceptable levels of microbes and mold. Rino Ferrarese, who runs Affinity Grow in Portland, confirmed they don’t irradiate their products.
Zachs, who is currently building a cultivation facility, said it’s not in his plans to do so. “We don’t like to remediate because we don’t want to have to, number one, and number two, the general data around remediation is it’s really bad for terpene profiles and flavor and smell,” he said. “We think that’s a core component of the product.”
Rodeo Cannabis, which runs the state’s only outdoor cannabis grow facility, does: Co-founder Art Linares confirmed that every product passes through the company’s $500,000 radiation machine. “It gets rid of the microbials. It adds nothing to the product,” he said. “It kills any kind of microbials that exist.”
Under current Connecticut standards, no cannabis may be sold that has any Aspergillus, E. coli or salmonella present, and mold may not exceed 1 million colony forming units per gram (CFU/g).
Rodeo is not the only one. Radiation is a commonly used method of microbe management in both the cannabis and the food industries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved food irradiation as a safe and effective process, but, “All irradiated foods must display the Radura symbol to let consumers know that the product has been treated with irradiation,” according to the FDA’s website.
Tess Eidem, a professor of microbiology at the University of Colorado Boulder and a former cannabis company lab manager, said cannabis companies are using remediation improperly.
“In food safety, you cannot recover a product that has spoiled or has a known pathogen on it,” she said. “In cannabis, you basically can take an infected product or a product that’s been poorly handled, it has human pathogens on it, and you can zap it with radiation or bathe it in ozone, heat up with radiofrequency and as long as it passes compliance testing, you can sell it to consumers.”
“A manufacturer will just put everything through there, everything, because they know they’re going to fail,” she said.
Eidem noted that the United States Pharmacopeia, an official list of medical products and procedures, “forbids the technology from being used in the way that they’re being used, which is to recover contaminated products or products is likely to fail.”
A 2020 paper authored by Nandakumara D. Sarma of the United States Pharmacopeia’s Department of Dietary Supplements and Herbal Medicines, says that, “treatment methods such as irradiation should not be used as a means to remediate cannabis contaminated above the allowed limits.”
Department of Consumer Protection spokesperson Kaitlyn Krasselt confirmed that DCP is aware of the use of radiation, and State Rep. Mike D’Agostino, D-Hamden, co-chair of the legislature’s general law committee, said “DCP regulates that, oversees that, is aware of the radiation testing.”
D’Agostino said a law currently being considered by the legislature — approved this week by a wide majority in the state House — would require labeling on the risks of mold and other microbes, and would require that customers are informed of any remediation.
The bill would also allow cultivators to remediate cannabis after it fails testing, and then retest.
“We have a zero tolerance standard for Aspergillus, which is the one that really makes people sick,” he said. “But other types of molds you can have, and we wanted to make sure consumers are aware of it, too. I would love to have a zero tolerance position across the board, but that would supposedly kill the industry that they just wouldn’t be able to get any product out there.”