Search Results: chromatography (6)

The Weed Blog

Mixed Findings Show Strengths and Problems Among Analytic Testing Services

How accurate is cannabis potency testing? California NORML and Project CBD have released the results of their first “Ring Test” to assess the accuracy of analytical laboratories.
In the winter of 2010-2011, California NORML and Project CBD initiated a “Ring Test” to assess the accuracy of the numerous analytical cannabis testing laboratories that have recently emerged to serve medical marijuana dispensaries, breeders, growers and patients.
Results of the study, coauthored by California NORML Director Dale Gieringer and Dutch scientist Dr. Arno Hazekamp, are reported in the Autumn 2011 issue of O’Shaughnessy’s, the Journal of Cannabis In Clinical Practice [PDF].

Holistic Herbal Healers

Holistic Herbal Healers, a medical marijuana dispensary in San Jose, California, has recently formed a partnership with Pure Analytics, a Santa Rosa-based cannabis testing lab, to have all of their medicine tested to ensure it is free of harmful chemicals and contaminants, and to inform patients of its potency.

“We are excited to offer our patients the extra peace of mind that testing by Pure Analytics brings,” said the office manager at San Jose Wellness Center Holistic Herbal Healers. “We are committed to ensuring that all of our medicine is clean and safe.”
Pure Analytics tests marijuana flowers and edibles to ensure they’re free of dangerous pesticides, molds and fungi. They also use chromatographic analysis to verify concentrations of THC, CBD and CBN, the three cannabinoids most associated with marijuana’s healing properties.

Graphic: BudGenius

Artificial-Intelligence Software “BudGenius” Correlates Chemical Analysis with Online Patient Feedback

BudGenius.com, a social networking website and medical marijuana testing laboratory (now there’s a 21st Century combination for you!), says it has developed technology to predict therapeutic effects for thousands of marijuana strains by combining scientific data and crowd-sourced reviews.
Patients throughout California use the online service to select cannabis individually rated for pain relief, sleep aid, anxiety relief, nausea treatment, appetite stimulation, and mood modification. BudGenius says it plans to extend treatment options to target cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s within a year.
Patients search online at BudGenius.com to find locally available marijuana treatments that meet their requirements. Patients are also given the option to visit participating dispensaries and review onsite educational materials.

Chad Harder/Missoula Independent
Michael Geci, M.D.: “If you are going to call cannabis a medicine, you have to treat it like a medicine”

​For the first time in Montana, a lab has agreed to test all cannabis and cannabis-based medicine that a local caregiver sells to qualified patients under the state’s medical marijuana law.

MCM Caregivers late last week signed a contract with Montana Botanical Analysis (MBA) of Bozeman, the first such arrangement in the state’s burgeoning medical cannabis market where a caregiver or dispensary has contracted to have all its medicine tested.
“Despite all the bad press that’s been generated, mostly by just or or two highly visible personalities, the medical cannabis industry is rapidly moving towards standards of quality control that have been completely absent,” said Michael Geci, M.D., who serves as CEO of Montana Botanical Analysis.
“Having all of our cannabis medicine tested by MBA is a real milestone in the maturity of the medical cannabis industry in Montana,” said owner Randy Leibenguth of MCM Caregivers. “Having our product tested by MBA provides a level of product safety and consumer protection for our patients they need and deserve.”
Standards are essential in the medical marijuana industry, according to Leibenguth. “This kind of positive news helps to calm the fears of the public that this industry is out of control,” he said. “People should remember that this testing program is completely voluntary. I’m paying for it out of my own pocket.”

Photo: Westword
Cannabis potency testers Full Spectrum Laboratories were raided by federal agents Wednesday. Marijuana samples were seized, but no arrests were made.

​Federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration earlier this week raided a Denver potency testing laboratory and seized medical marijuana samples.

Cannabis advocates say the federal raid is the latest example of continued official harassment of the medical marijuana industry, reports John Ingold at The Denver Post.
The raid of Full Spectrum Laboratories happened on Wednesday, according to Betty Aldworth, the lab’s outreach director. Aldworth said federal agents took dozens of medical marijuana samples, both small amounts of pot and test tubes of “extraction fluid,” but left the lab’s equipment.
No employees were arrested.
Aldworth was at the State Capitol to watch lab co-owner Bob Winnicki testify about State Senator Chris Romer’s new medical marijuana bill when both Full Spectrum employees got an email letting them know the DEA had “stopped by” the lab, reports Michael Roberts at Westword.
By the time Aldworth and Winnicki got back to the lab, “it was full of DEA agents” and other local law enforcement hangers-on who spent the next several hours seizing all the marijuana they could find.


Photo: Westword
Full Spectrum Laboratories: Finally, a more detailed analysis of marijuana than, “That’s good shit, man!”

​One of the biggest question marks with the medical marijuana industry is the lack of quality control. As Joel Warner points out at Westword, it’s difficult to know just how potent herbal medicines and edibles are until you use them.

Full Spectrum Laboratories to the rescue. The four-month-old Denver company is making a business of analyzing medical marijuana samples.
Dispensaries are delivering small samples (about 500 milligrams) of the pot they’re getting from growers to Full Spectrum, which uses high-performance liquid chromatography to determine their potency. The tests reveal amounts of THC and other cannabinoids, the active ingredients of cannabis.
The service costs $120 per test, or $60 per test for 40 or more samples.
“Dispensaries are getting all this really cool stuff, but it turns out 80 percent of the edibles aren’t being made properly, so it’s not as active as it could be,” said Bob Winnicki, Full Spectrum’s 35-year-old co-owner.