Pubdate: Wed, 24 Jun 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Bob Young

MEDICAL-MARIJUANA EDIBLES OFTEN MISLABELED, NEW RESEARCH FINDS

Seattle Dispensaries Included in Study

Items From Here Had Less THC Than Indicated

Yet another sampling of marijuana products has found inaccurate 
labeling of potency.

A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association 
(JAMA) reports that all but one of the 23 edible products bought in 
Seattle medical-marijuana dispensaries last year were improperly 
labeled. Most of the baked goods, beverages and candy contained less 
THC than their labels said. THC is the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

Previous research, including by The Seattle Times, has found similar 
inaccuracies in medical marijuana and legal recreational pot. But the 
JAMA study's lead author said his research was more rigorous than 
work by news organizations and others.

"If we want to recommend cannabis as medicine, patients should expect 
reliability and consistency in what they're buying. The failure to do 
so is an injustice to the consumer and puts patients at risk," said 
Ryan Vandrey, lead author and associate professor at Johns Hopkins 
University School of Medicine.

Risks amount to more than the severe anxiety New York Times columnist 
Maureen Dowd wrote about experiencing with an edible snack in 
Colorado. They can also include vomiting, hallucinations and 
psychosis, Vandrey said.

The JAMA study examined edibles after purchase in three cities: 
Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Seattle products were "severely overlabeled," Vandrey said. "These 
were products that contained far less THC than advertised," he said.

One edible contained less than 1 percent of what it was supposed to 
have, he said. Eight of the other 22 samples contained between just 3 
and 33 percent of the labeled THC content.

Vendrey's article does not name the three Seattle dispensaries at 
which products were bought last fall. He and co-authors decided not 
to call out individuals, he said. "Instead we wanted to point out the 
problem as a whole and encourage regulation."

Their decision might have been different, he said, if they had found 
only a couple of manufacturers at fault. But because they found 
inaccuracies across a range of products, he didn't want the study to 
be "construed as promoting or degrading certain companies."

Samples from San Francisco, as in Seattle, tended to be weaker than 
labeled. Los Angeles samples tended to be stronger than labeled.

In all, just 13 of the 75 samples from the three cities tested by 
Vandrey were accurately labeled, meaning the key chemical content of 
tested samples was within 10 percent of their labeling; 17 samples 
were stronger than the label indicated and 45 were weaker.

The inconsistencies point to two main problems, Vandrey said. Because 
all pot remains illegal under federal law, medical-marijuana products 
lack the consistent dosing found in drugs regulated by the Food and 
Drug Administration.

Medical-edibles manufacturers are not careful enough in their 
testing, Vandrey said. A likely problem, he said, is that they're 
testing a corner of a cookie or brownie, not the entire edible.

For his research, Vandrey said products were crushed or mixed and 
tested with highperformance liquid chromatography equipment.

Vandrey said he had no idea if manufacturers were deliberately 
mislabeling products to encourage sales.

Washington and California do not require dispensaries to test their 
products. But Washington does require its legal recreational 
retailers to test products at state-certified labs for potency. "If 
you ask me, that's backward," Vandrey said of Washington's current rules.

Under changes made by the Legislature this year, medical marijuana 
will require the same testing for potency as recreational weed in the state.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom