Oregon Eases Marijuana Testing Standards

Faced with the fact that stringent testing standards may be it at the root of marijuana shortages and price hikes, the Oregon Health Authority has established new temporary rules to help ease the problem. The rules went into effect Friday.

The authority says that rules balance the costs of testing with public health protection for consumers.

Highlights of the temporary rules:

• Replaces process validation with control study
• Cuts three process validation tests to one control study.
• A processor with a process lot that passes one control study can combine samples into one composite sample, plus a field duplicate for testing, for one year, unless the manufacturing of the product changes.
• Removes alcohol-based solvents from testing requirement
• Butanol, propanol and ethanol are removed from solvent analyte list.
• Combines some batches for testing
• Samples from multiple batches may be combined for the purposes of testing for THC and CBD if the batches are the same strain.
• Samples from multiple batches, even if different strains, may be combined for the purposes of testing for pesticides if the total weight of the batches does not exceed 10 pounds.

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