Pubdate: Thu, 07 Jul 2011
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2011 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Hudson Sangree
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

UC DAVIS RESEARCHERS' LAB TESTS SAFETY, POTENCY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Two UC Davis researchers are on a mission to make sure pot is pure.

Chemistry professor Donald Land and university lab manager Kymron 
deCesare are running a startup medical marijuana testing facility in 
West Sacramento called Halent Laboratories.

Both describe themselves as true believers in the therapeutic effects 
of cannabis.

Land, a tenured faculty member at UC Davis, said his mother died from 
cancer and his brother died from HIV/AIDS, both in great pain and 
without access to medical marijuana. He said he's intent on removing 
the social stigma of pot for patients who can benefit.

"Part of what we're doing here is legitimizing cannabis for medical 
use by certain people," Land said.

DeCesare, who wears his gray hair in a long ponytail, said he was a 
medic in Vietnam and uses marijuana to treat his migraines and 
nervous stomach. He said he wants patients to have access to safe and 
tested medication.

UC Davis allows its employees to work off campus as long as they 
adhere to rules that include time limits and reporting requirements, 
a university spokesman said.

Land and deCesare are bringing their scientific expertise and passion 
for medical marijuana to bear on a pressing problem:

How can patients, many of whom have compromised immune systems, know 
that the pot they're smoking or ingesting is free of pesticides, 
molds and toxins that may harm them?

And who determines the marijuana's potency and the chemical 
properties that may contribute to its effectiveness as medicine?

"The FDA isn't doing it," said deCesare, referring to the U.S. Food 
and Drug Administration. The federal government doesn't recognize 
marijuana as medicine and doesn't certify its safety.

With a lack of government oversight, local entrepreneurs and 
scientists have stepped in to fill the void and reap profits.

"It's a pretty cool story of self-regulation. The local community is 
stepping up to take care of everyone," said Micah Nelson, sales 
manager with Sequoia Analytical Labs, based in Natomas.

Halent and Sequoia both started in April as Sacramento's first 
marijuana testing labs. They joined about a half-dozen labs already 
operating in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Jeff Hatley, Sequoia's founder and president, said Sacramento 
dispensaries were waiting up to three weeks to get test results from 
Bay Area labs, by which time they'd sold the pot they were having tested.

"The results were basically no good by the time they received them," 
Hatley said.

At the labs, small samples of marijuana arrive from growers and 
dispensaries and are put through a battery of tests to look for 
contaminants and to determine strength. The testing costs about $110 
to $120 per sample.

On a recent day at Halent, located near the Port of Sacramento, 
deCesare opened a foil package containing about a gram of marijuana 
and put it under a microscope.

He looked for the sticky density that would indicate its potency. 
"You can see how well developed it is," he said.

Then he ground up the sample, mixed the powder with a liquid solution 
and handed it off to Land, who placed small vials of the mixture into 
a bank of high-tech scanners connected to computers.

The chemical components are separated and analyzed using liquid 
chromatography and a mass spectrometer, a process that takes hours. 
Then the results are displayed in jagged graphs in a rainbow of 
colors on computer screens.

Land said researchers, including graduate students who work at the 
lab, must decipher the results and translate them into easy-to-read 
reports that are given to dispensaries and patients.

Only a fraction of the more than 100 dispensaries in the Sacramento 
area currently sell tested marijuana, but consumers are becoming more 
educated and seeking out certified-safe pot, Land said.

"For a lot of them," the UC Davis professor said, "it's a matter of 
life and death to make sure they don't have contaminated medicine."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom