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Not All Vape Cartridge Lab Tests Are Equal
The assumption that many people may make is that once a cannabis extract cartridge brand posts a lab test page, they are now "clean" and in the clear. Here's why that's a bad assumption:
The below applies mostly to California, but other states have similar processes. California is where most of the cart black market centers anyway. In California, a lab test results page is known as a COA (Certificate of Analysis). California's standards for COAs are right here:
R&D Testing is for PRIVATE use only!
R&D (Research and Development) AKA QA (Quality Assurance) testing is provided by cannabis testing laboratories as a courtesy service. It is done for the purpose of quality assurance, or for private consumers who want to bring in any cartridge to test it.
Let's say you're a cannabis extractor, and you have pressed a new batch of flower, processed it into oil, etc. Before you package the whole batch, you want to test your process to make sure there's no issues. You fill one cartridge and bring it in. When you see the results, you can quality check your own process to review it for issues.
Or let's say you're an end consumer with a medical card. You have a prescription for CBD oil, but you want to make sure it limits the THC percentage. You can bring in a sample to test, and find out more about what you'll be taking.
Contact any cannabis product testing laboratory, and they will tell you that you, the consumer, are not supposed to see an R&D lab page at all. It is not meant to vouch for the safety of a product. A dead giveaway that you're looking at an R&D page is that the license number and address of the testing party is omitted. In addition, some labs will also mark each page as "R&D."
There are also some labs, such as Flower Potency Testing, which clearly say right on their front page that they are "R&D only."
Hence, every test you can see with a Flower Potency Labs logo is an R&D test.
Compliance Testing is for commercial release.
Compliance Testing is an entirely different process. As required by strict regulation, the process is overseen by the lab from start to finish.
https://www.encore-labs.com/californ...urance-testing
There is even more documentation and protocol to it than we've included here.
Any brand which posts R&D lab results as a claim of product safety is committing a fraud.
You should be doubly suspicious of any cart brand that does this. They can't claim to not know about health and safety risks because they are publishing lab results. But they are doing so deceptively, and every cannabis product testing facility should be briefing them on the legalities. We have also caught companies altering their lab results via Photoshop and other methods, which is blatant fraud as well.
Cannabis extracts are difficult enough to get right even for fully licensed, professional facilities. Once a company has lied to you, why should you trust them with your health?
At the very least, you should be able to scan the QR code on a lab test results page and find the original hosted on the laboratory's chosen site, or be able to contact the lab and check to make sure you're looking at an actual compliance test.
The below applies mostly to California, but other states have similar processes. California is where most of the cart black market centers anyway. In California, a lab test results page is known as a COA (Certificate of Analysis). California's standards for COAs are right here:
R&D Testing is for PRIVATE use only!
R&D (Research and Development) AKA QA (Quality Assurance) testing is provided by cannabis testing laboratories as a courtesy service. It is done for the purpose of quality assurance, or for private consumers who want to bring in any cartridge to test it.
Let's say you're a cannabis extractor, and you have pressed a new batch of flower, processed it into oil, etc. Before you package the whole batch, you want to test your process to make sure there's no issues. You fill one cartridge and bring it in. When you see the results, you can quality check your own process to review it for issues.
Or let's say you're an end consumer with a medical card. You have a prescription for CBD oil, but you want to make sure it limits the THC percentage. You can bring in a sample to test, and find out more about what you'll be taking.
Contact any cannabis product testing laboratory, and they will tell you that you, the consumer, are not supposed to see an R&D lab page at all. It is not meant to vouch for the safety of a product. A dead giveaway that you're looking at an R&D page is that the license number and address of the testing party is omitted. In addition, some labs will also mark each page as "R&D."
There are also some labs, such as Flower Potency Testing, which clearly say right on their front page that they are "R&D only."
Hence, every test you can see with a Flower Potency Labs logo is an R&D test.
Compliance Testing is for commercial release.
Compliance Testing is an entirely different process. As required by strict regulation, the process is overseen by the lab from start to finish.
- The process is documented and sent in to the BCC (Bureau of Cannabis Control).
- The process is also recorded by a third-party track-and-trace system.
- The producer makes the entire batch of oil available to the lab.
- The lab sends a courier to select random samples from the entire batch.
- A video recording is made of this process.
- The sample is sealed and made tamper-proof before transport.
- License numbers from the testing party must be submitted.
- Should the compliance testing come back dirty for pesticides, metals, residual solvents, or other health concerns, the entire batch is to be destroyed, recorded by the track-and-trace system.
https://www.encore-labs.com/californ...urance-testing
There is even more documentation and protocol to it than we've included here.
Any brand which posts R&D lab results as a claim of product safety is committing a fraud.
You should be doubly suspicious of any cart brand that does this. They can't claim to not know about health and safety risks because they are publishing lab results. But they are doing so deceptively, and every cannabis product testing facility should be briefing them on the legalities. We have also caught companies altering their lab results via Photoshop and other methods, which is blatant fraud as well.
Cannabis extracts are difficult enough to get right even for fully licensed, professional facilities. Once a company has lied to you, why should you trust them with your health?
At the very least, you should be able to scan the QR code on a lab test results page and find the original hosted on the laboratory's chosen site, or be able to contact the lab and check to make sure you're looking at an actual compliance test.
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