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Consumers of cannabis-derived products like cannabidiol (CBD) tinctures and flower are advised to “look for third party testing” and to “ask to see a lab report.” But what does all of it mean?
Josh Smith is president, CEO and co-founder of Premium CBD Labs (2821 Dairy Dr., Ste. 1, Madison), a hemp testing laboratory. He has a background in microbiology and had worked for a pharmaceutical R&D company, and in molecular biology at UW-Wisconsin. Smith sheds some light on what consumers should pay attention to when deciphering certificates of analysis (COAs), or lab reports.
COAs provide information about the testing lab, the brand and product and the potency of the ingredients. For CBD products, the COA lists the potency of CBD, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids present. COAs may also list terpenes, and whether the product is free from heavy metals, pesticides and molds.
Smith advises to ask retailers whether the product you intend to buy has been third-party tested. “Third party testing basically means that somebody else other than the company that makes the product is testing it,” he explains. If the seller is hesitant or cannot product a COA, consider a different product. “If people are on the up-and-up, they are very willing to give those out or have them displayed.”
Watch for Heavy Metals, Pesticides
Smith says COAs may vary, depending on what you’re buying, but hemp is what’s considered bioremediatory, meaning that the plant will pull out anything from the soil, including pesticides. “Definitely check the pesticides and the heavy metals,” he stresses.
The letters “ND” on COAs generally stand for “none detected.” For oils and tinctures, Smith recommends checking for residual solvents. Processors often distill desired cannabinoids from the plant using ethanol, or grain alcohol. Ethanol is commonly used in extraction because it evaporates and cleans up easier, resulting in cleaner products. “But you want to see the solvents, just in case they used something like butane or hexane, which is fine to use, but they have to go through the extra cleanup to make sure it’s been removed,” Smith says.
Terms like “limonene” and “linalool” are scientific names for citrus and lavender, respectively, and indicate the terpenes present. Terpenes are the flavors, smells and scents that give strains their characteristics. Smith notes to be wary of health claims attached to certain terpenes.
Buyer Beware
“Unless there has been a validated clinical study that proves that these certain effects are there, don’t believe it,” he says. “Medical marijuana has been used for pain relief, anti-anxiety, sleep and nausea. Those are the only verified, clinically-backed effects of cannabis. When you have somebody say, ‘it fights this’ or ‘it cures that,’ there is some very good anecdotal evidence that suggests it might, but until you see a clinical study, it’s buyer beware.”
He also advises that consumers make sure the COA they’re reviewing is actually from that batch. He’s also seen COAs for products that are more than a year old. There haven’t been many stability studies for the industry, Smith says, and CBD can degrade, especially when exposed to sunlight and certain temperatures.
Regarding flower, Smith has tested flower grown outdoors from 18 different states. Most of the time, if it contained more than 13% CBD, the flower was “hot,” meaning that it also contained more than .3% THC. Weather extremes, how long plants have been in the ground and a lack of trustworthy seed suppliers present challenges for farmers trying to grow CBD cannabis strains outdoors while staying under federal legal limits.
One of the biggest changes Smith sees in today’s cannabis industry is a lack of uniform terminology. He’s on the on the board of Association of Official Analytical Chemists AOAC and ASTM International, an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials.
Smith believes that federal legalization of all cannabis will help standardize the industry for consumers. “Cannabis is cannabis—it’s like a petunia with a red flower, and one with a yellow flower. It’s the same plant. Whether cannabis is classified as hemp, marijuana or fiber, it’s all cannabis.”
For more information, visit premiumcbdlabs.com.
