Pubdate: Tue, 24 Dec 2013
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Steve Raabe
Page: 8A

GETTING THE WEED THAT YOU PAID FOR

State Agency Tests Accuracy of Every Scale Used in Marijuana
Sales

When you're spending upwards of $200 an ounce for legal weed, you want
to make sure you're getting every single bud and flake you paid for.

Nicholas Brechun is on your side. It's his state-paid job to direct
the testing of scales used by medical-marijuana dispensaries in
Colorado, to ensure that what's being sold actually measures up.

Next week, that job description grows to include retail-marijuana
stores that can begin legally selling on Jan. 1.

It's not just pot, though. The Colorado Department of Agriculture by
law is charged with checking the accuracy of all scales used for
everything from pomegranates to propane, to polled Hereford cattle-
any item or commodity for which owners must have a state license to
sell.

But the testing of marijuana scales has taken on a new prominence with
medical cannabis and the passage last year of Amendment 64, which
legalized recreational use for people age 21 and over.

Each of Colorado's 516 dispensaries has its scales inspected at least
once a year.

On Monday, it was the turn of the Green Solution dispensary on
Wadsworth Boulevard in Lakewood.

Brechun pulls out his black leather test kit that has small steel
weights, each weighing precisely the amount stamped on it- 5 grams, 10
grams, 50 grams and so on.

He dons disposable gloves because when working with precision digital
scales, even the oil from his fingertips can throw measurements out of
balance.

Brechun starts with a 5-gram weight, placing it on the platform of the
dispensary's Swiss-made Mettler Toledo scale. The scale's digital
readout shows 5.00 grams-exactly as it should.

He moves through the progression of 10-, 20- and 50-gram weights. Only
when he tests with the 100-gram weight - equivalent to about 3.5
ounces-is there the tiniest variation. The scale's display shows
99.98 grams. That's well within the tolerances allowed.

Besides, the discrepancy is in the customer's favor, even though it
would take a microscope to see a tiny fleck of cannabis weighing 0.02
grams.

In a matter of minutes, Brechun completes his inspection of the
dispensary's four scales.

"These scales are good," he says. "But that's to be
expected."

Only a handful of scales at Colorado dispensaries have ever tested
outside of tolerance ranges. When they do, inspectors order them to be
recalibrated, and then they are tested again.

"We want our patients to know exactly what they're getting," said
Green Solution general manager Jeremy Mullin. "If they want to see it
weighed, and weighed again, that's what we will do."
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MAP posted-by: Matt