Lab tests will be found anywhere that has a regulated cannabis industry. Everything gets tested for potency, heavy metal, moisture and mold, pesticides, and solvents. It overall displays the ingredients of the product, kind of like a box of cereal and it let’s you know it’s safe to consume. While different states hold different standards for testing and will vary from state to state (Example of pesticides: Colorado requires a test of only 13 pesticides, Oregon 59, and California 66.) the lab results for the products in those areas are the analytics that are displayed for the consumer.
For Cannabis analysis you’ll need a lab for lots of analytical equipment. To start you’ll need a High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. The really good ones start at around $11,000. This piece of equipment determines the potencies of cannabinoid’s found in the cannabis sample (Example: THC, CBD, CBN). The sample is put into a solution and then poured through an absorbent. The different compounds move through at different rates leaving behind different colors and it’s the color separation and color densities that determines both the presence and the concentration of those different compounds.
Then you’ll need Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry for pesticides and residual solvents. This process adds immense heat to the matter changing all of the solids and liquids over to a gas. Turns out this is a great process for measuring pesticides and residual solvents. This process can also be used to gather information on potency levels. However, due to the heat amounts this decarboxylates cannabinoids as the test is occurring. That’s about $30,000…
Next you’ll need Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry for heavy metals or a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Let’s talk about that one. This was my personal favorite piece of equipment that I found along the way of doing the research for this article and would definitely want one in my lab just for the sake of the name. But the process in itself is super cool and totally sci-fi-esk. This device measures the magnetic fields around the atomic nuclei. The sample is put into a magnetic field and blasted with a ton of radio waves and this excites the nuclei and actually transmits back in radio waves. Within the broadcast it gives a detailed description of its molecule structure and all of its chemical compounds. Weed radio… That blows my mind. 🤯 We ask what it’s made of and it replies. Magnetics to find heavy metals. Those range 35-160 thousand dollars 💸.
And last but certainly not least you’ll definitely need something to measure Mold. These things started around $1500 and go all the way up to 30 grand. Ladies and gentlemen I would like to introduce to you The Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction. This processor can easily identify any bacteria, microbes, or fungus living inside of the plant matter. While you’re at it you might as well pick up a moisture analyzer, they’re about the same cost.
Some of these devices have the capabilities of doing most of the testings. But as you can see some of them are just better at certain things than others. So for higher accuracy, multiple pieces of equipment will be necessary.
With technology in constant development we’ll definitely see improvements in testing equipment along the way. Already there is home equipment available like PURPL PRO and MYDX ANALYZER. These are pretty cool little handheld devices that actually fit in your pocket and run off of an app powered by your smartphone. PURPL PRO runs off an infrared system that bases its reports off of the light that is returned from the plant matter. The MYDX ANALYZER works off a scent system to break down your analytics. Both are great and really easy to use however they don’t do any analytics on things like heavy-metals, mold, or pesticides. Plus, even the CEO of MYDX admits that his device is not as accurate as a laboratory test result. There’s actually a 20% variable in some cases. So the handhelds are great, but it’s not a lab. I would think for field testing the portables would be a great option to utilize before getting an actual lab test for finalization.
