U.S. Customs and Border Safety (CBP) is seeking to purchase transportable marijuana analyzers to rapidly establish cannabinoid profiles and assist distinguish between marijuana and federally authorized hemp.
In a latest discover, CBP mentioned it’s soliciting “statements of labor” from corporations that manufacture hashish analyzers that meet the company’s purposeful requirements.
Whereas it didn’t say precisely what it plans to do with the gadgets, CBD mentioned it “requires the potential to find out if suspect plant materials or manufactured merchandise include cannabinoid-class chemical compounds and in what amount.”
Presumably, the know-how could be used as a part of investigations into suspected instances of marijuana smuggling. Regulation enforcement has struggled to differentiate between illicit marijuana and authorized hemp because the latter crop was faraway from federal management beneath the 2018 Farm Invoice.
The discover specifies that the machine should be capable to decide whether or not a given hashish product incorporates greater than 0.3 % THC by dry weight, which might imply it matches the federal definition of unlawful marijuana.
CBP laid out the extra particulars about what it’s on the lookout for in a hashish analyzer, which should be “human-portable,” weighing not more than 15 kilos.
“At a minimal” it should be capable to detect 9 cannabinoids listed on a desk supplied within the discover, together with delta-9 THC, delta-8 THC, CBD, CBN and CBG.
It should additionally be capable to establish moisture and estimated dry weight of the hashish materials.
A full “evaluation cycle” should not take greater than 12 minutes, and the company additionally mentioned the display screen should be in colour and visual in numerous lighting settings.
Additional, following the evaluation, the machine should present every cannabinoid that it detects, the dry weight of the cannabinoids and the moisture content material.
“The analyzer shall have the power to retailer evaluation information and outcomes on board the system,” the discover says. “The analyzer shall be able to displaying the outcomes of the analyses of the saved information” and it “shall have the power to switch information information and outcomes to a common serial bus (USB) flash drive.”
The machine additionally must have a minimal of an eight-hour cost and include a battery charger and impermeable carrying case.
Beside supplying the machine itself, the discover requires the corporate that’s contracted by CBP to supply coaching on learn how to function the analyzer. That coaching “shall be at an undergraduate and graduate degree of bodily sciences (e.g., chemistry) and should embody a evaluate of the operator’s guide and procedures as record therein.”
Nevertheless, the company burdened that whereas the corporate is required to supply coaching aids, aside from “product containing cannabinoids and product freed from cannabinoids,” as these “might be supplied by the federal government.”
The deadline to submit statements of labor on hashish analyzer capabilities is September 2.
Primarily based on a report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) that was launched in June, Border Patrol brokers have largely seized small quantities of medication from Americans at checkpoints, not giant portions trafficked by transnational cartels as some may assume.
“GAO discovered that the majority drug seizure occasions concerned solely U.S. residents (91 %), of which 75 % concerned the seizure of marijuana and no different medication,” the report says.
Per different research and federal reviews, the evaluation additionally confirmed a major decline in marijuana seizures at checkpoints total since 2016, as extra states have moved to supply customers with a option to legally buy hashish from regulated companies and federal prosecutors have more and more urged discretion in marijuana instances.
On the subject of hashish analytics, the Justice Division in 2020 awarded $350,000 to the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Expertise (NIST) to assist efforts to “present forensic laboratories with the required analytical instruments” to differentiate between marijuana and hemp.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) individually introduced in 2019 that it was looking for a tool to “present specificity to differentiate between hemp and marijuana” because the former crop was legalized.
The issues ensuing from hemp legalization turned particularly obvious in Texas, the place marijuana possession arrests fell nearly 30 % from 2018 to 2019 following the state-level legalization of the non-intoxicating hashish crop. Prosecutors within the state dismissed a whole lot of low-level hashish instances since hemp was legalized. And officers introduced in 2020 that labs wouldn’t be performing testing in misdemeanor instances, with the Division of Public Security saying it “is not going to have the capability to simply accept these.”