Hawaii Rejects 20 Percent of Cannabis Product
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]O[/dropcap]ne-fifth of the cannabis product tested in Hawaii is unfit for sale according to the state’s first and largest cannabis testing lab.
Hawaii requires strict testing of cannabis products heading for island dispensary shelves. “About 20 to 30 percent gets rejected, fails the compliance test. And I would say that 95 percent of that is from biological organisms,” said Michael Covington, chief operations officer for Steep Hill Hawaii in Honolulu. Steep Hill Hawaii was the first licensed cannabis testing lab in the state and one of nine nationally.
Hawaii requires rigorous testing of products for pesticides, residual solvents and microbiological heavy metal contaminants. The state has set limits on the solvents and cleaning agents used in processing the cannabis. Rejected products are either destroyed or retested after being broken down into oils. The testing results are in line with findings across the Unites States. California had a 20 percent rejection rate the first half of 2018.
Cannabis is at risk of picking up mold, yeast and bacteria in its raw form. Hawaii restricts pesticide use, so island-grown crops usually aren’t rejected for that type of contamination. “We seldom pick up pesticides and if we do it’s usually a mistake, someone used the wrong can of something and sprayed it,” said Covington.
“We’re assuming people with compromised immune systems are going to be using this product. So we want to make sure it’s clean, clean of contamination,” Covington said. “We’re trying to give them medicine, not poison.”
Medical cannabis is currently legal in Hawaii and operates on a cashless system. The state is currently serving about 22,000 cannabis patients, about 1.5 percent of the population. Hawaii recently passed an amendment allowing out-of-state cannabis patients to be able to register in the state before arriving and receive medical cannabis from Hawaiian dispensaries, with the potential to be serving 30,000 patients on the islands annually.
