Higher percentage of pot passing safety tests

LOS ANGELES >> A higher percentage of California marijuana products are passing strict safety tests, but the sudden closing of a lab that state authorities found wasn’t correctly checking for pesticides has raised new questions about the system intended to protect the purity and potency of legal cannabis.

California broadly legalized marijuana at the start of the year, and mandatory testing began in July 1. During the first two months the failure rate was about 20 percent, but state data collected through November showed improvement — about 14 percent of nearly 24,000 products were blocked from store shelves by tests.

Cannabis-infused cookies, candies and tinctures continued having the most trouble in test labs: About 26 percent were rejected, though that also was an improved rate compared to the July-August period, when one-third failed.

“With any news rules, there’s always going to be a period of adjustment that takes place,” said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Cannabis Control. “The cannabis industry in California adapts pretty quickly, and I think that’s what we’re seeing with these lower fail rates in testing. That’s encouraging.”

The integrity of the testing program was shaken last month when Sacramento-based Sequoia Analytical Labs surrendered its license after state regulators found it was conducting faulty tests for pesticides, apparently since the program kicked off at midyear.

State regulators asked retailers and distributors to recall any batches tested by the company after July 1. Any batches returned by consumers must be destroyed. Products pulled back from a company’s inventory can be retested with state permission, or destroyed. But it’s likely many of those products already have been consumed.

It wasn’t immediately clear how much cannabis was cleared by the lab for sale, but it’s almost certainly a large amount, covering five months of testing. The state has issued only a few dozen lab licenses.

State regulators declined to comment on specifics of the case, other than to confirm the company no longer holds a license to test cannabis in the state.

In a statement posted on its website, the company blamed the flawed tests on a faulty instrument that failed to check for 22 of 66 required pesticides. The company said it terminated its lab director who “knew about this and was secretly falsifying the results” since July 1. The company said it is seeking to have its license reinstated.

The lab did not return a phone call or email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Swetha Kaul, chief scientific officer at Santa Anabased testing company Cannalysis who sits on the board of the California Cannabis Industry Association, said there are concerns that some companies might not be getting sufficient oversight from regulators.