In April 2022, new Washington State Liquor and Hashish Board (LCB) hashish pesticide testing final rules took impact. Beneath the principles, hashish flower and intermediate merchandise should bear contaminant testing. The rationale for the is shopper security – which looks like a respectable concern provided that leisure use hashish producers had been beforehand not required to test for pesticides in any respect. Certainly, one hashish testing laboratory launched a white paper earlier this 12 months claiming that hashish pesticide contamination is a critical concern in Washington, particularly for concentrates that, when examined on an “off the shelf” foundation in 2018, had pesticide failure price as excessive as 40%.
Whereas the LCB’s targets could also be honest, they may have some fairly important results on the trade. On this submit, we define what we expect are the 2 largest ones:
- Hashish pesticide testing is now required for hashish flower and all intermediate hashish merchandise which might be used within the creation of finish merchandise like hashish extract and concentrates; and
- Heaps, batches, and (“theoretically” in keeping with the LCB) harvests that fail pesticide pattern testing could now not be remediated and people who fail have to be destroyed.
Unusually, whereas it seems that the new regulations permit for producers and processors to pay for retesting of failed samples, our understanding from the LCB is that licensees can solely retest failed pattern assessments for Pyrethrins (a naturally occurring pesticide present in over 2,000 registered pesticide merchandise). Licensees should destroy crops from all different failed pattern assessments with out any alternative for retesting or remediation. It is a fairly excessive rule that’s prone to have huge penalties for the trade.
Moreover, the LCB has not issued steerage on the implication {that a} failed lot or batch could be thought of to have on the harvest it got here from, although it did say that theoretically failed pattern assessments might end in a whole harvest needing to be destroyed, relying on the take a look at outcomes. Neither was the LCB forthcoming in the way it deliberate to implement the pesticide testing necessities.
Within the absence of regulatory steerage, market members are sure to alter their practices and contracts to ensure they aren’t those left with no chair when the music stops. It’s laborious to think about these new guidelines not leading to downstream testing compliance necessities by retailers to processors and producers. Processors specifically, says the white paper cited above “who extract hashish oil from plant materials maintain the best threat.” As a result of producers alone have direct management over pesticide use and avoidance procedures pre-harvest, the burden of compliance will probably be shifted to them.
The one approach for retailers and processors to make sure they aren’t the celebration left holding the (tainted) bag is to contractually require producers to show post-harvest hashish pesticide testing compliance earlier than accepting supply of product. Retailers and processors may also require producers to indemnify them, even when the producers certify that they’ve criticism merchandise. There might also be implications for testing labs as effectively, although if they’re sensible, they may present solely very restricted recourse for inaccurate hashish pesticide testing. In an effort to guarantee acceptance by processors and retailers, producers might want to decide a price environment friendly and dependable system of pre and post-harvest pesticide testing. All of that is prone to have important contractual, financial, and regulatory penalties for your complete market.
Including to what’s prone to be an unsure and probably expensive implementation interval are critical infrastructure considerations with respect to producers and processors with the ability to entry ample hashish pesticide testing from licensed labs throughout the state. The white paper cited above states that “solely 5 out of the eleven Washington state licensed laboratories have the technological functionality, and WSLCB authorization, for hashish pesticide testing.” The pesticide action level rule lists 59 pesticide compounds and their acceptable thresholds, however few labs within the state have the expertise or accreditation to check for all 59. The LCB did touch upon the infrastructure concern and is hopeful that drawback shall be brief time period.
All market members are prone to be impacted to some extent by these new guidelines and the LCB’s at the moment unknown enforcement insurance policies. Making issues worse, the flexibility, or lack thereof, to entry dependable and environment friendly hashish pesticide testingfacilities raises important compliance and enforcement points for producers, processors, and retailers.
We shall be monitoring hashish pesticide testing developments on this concern and intend to observe this submit with proposed greatest practices for compliance and enforcement with these new laws.