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A recently conducted analysis has determined that most cannabis recalls are circulated too late, even when products contain unhealthy levels of pesticides or mold. This comes at a time when a growing number of people are raising concerns about product safety.
The analysis focused on product recalls in the following state-regulated cannabis markets: New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Colorado and California.
CANNRA executive director Gillian Schauer said that states had different authority and capacity to recall products. The analysis determined that in some of these markets, recalls weren’t frequent, despite claims made by state authorities and whistleblowers that testing laboratories were manipulating results deliberately to please their clients.
Regulators in California announced six compulsory product recalls last month after an investigation determined that some cannabis products cleared for sale had detectable pesticide levels. Ten months have passed between the recalls and products being put up for sale now, which increases the likelihood that the items with issues have long been ingested by consumers or thrown away.
Last year, the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) in Massachusetts published a bulletin to alert the public that a test kit used to measure microbial contaminants may have possibly had defects. While the CCC noted that the department of enforcement and investigation was actively looking for the products with issues, they issued no recalls.
It remains unclear how many of the affected products were sold to consumers. This is a huge issue, particularly since the actual numbers of recalled products sold to consumers aren’t usually made public by governments at the state level.
The analysis also investigated recent mandatory recalls issued by regulators in the aforementioned states, apart from New York, determining that the recalls lagged by months. In one instance, California recalled products about seven weeks after they were cleared for sale. By then, it was too late to recover most of the affected products because they’d already been purchased by consumers.
Despite the immaturity of the multibillion-dollar regulated marijuana industry, regulators continue to emphasize the importance of product safety. To help with this, regulations have been modified to expedite recall response times while also prioritizing products that may pose huge health risks to consumers.
A good example of such is the introduction of reference labs run by states. The state of Oklahoma recently afforded its medical cannabis authority the power to launch a reference laboratory. Michigan is also expected to launch a reference laboratory toward the end of the year.
The cannabis industry has come a long way to reach the level where the substance is legal in many states, and it would be unfortunate if public trust starts eroding due to ineffective systems of recalling products suspected to have issues. It becomes vital then for cannabis brands such as Verano Holdings Corp. (CSE: VRNO) (OTCQX: VRNOF) to do everything in their power to cement their reputation for quality.
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