New cannabis testing rules burden small labs

Organic products are nothing new, but many don’t know about organic cannabis.

“This is all organic,” Christina Fehrs, owner at The Good Leaf dispensary in Bend, said Friday. “You want to make sure you’re not putting anything negative into your body.”

Fehrs said more and more customers are requesting organic cannabis. At The Good Leaf, they’re growing it themselves, to make sure it’s free of pesticides.

“All the stuff that we’re growing is organic. I mean, we’re going as far as including chicken poop in our own fertilizer mixture,” Fehrs said.

To be compliant, dispensaries have to have their cannabis tested by labs like Synergy Lab in Bend, which is testing for pesticides.

“So this still contains the pesticides and the analysis will show those peaks,” Jeremy Campbell at Synergy Lab said as he tested a batch of cannabis.

There is currently just one problem. There is little oversight over labs.

“I have to go through a lab to be compliant, but yet, there’s no regulations on the lab,” Campbell said.

Currently, regulations are very lax, but that’s about to change. The Oregon Health Authority has announced that starting next year, labs will have to be accredited, and they have to test for 60 different pesticides.

“Well, if you think about it, we are the ultimate cop,” Campbell said. “We’re responsible for making sure what you think you’re getting is what you’re getting.”

The new regulations come just two months before the deadline for state accreditation, and small labs like Synergy Lab are struggling to adjust.

“What they’re asking for, it’s a $250,000 machine to test for those specifics,” Campbell said.

After already spending $250,000, many small labs are now unsure if they can stay open or if the new regulations might shut them down, just months before the deadline.