By KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press
DENVER (AP) - Marijuana may be coming out of the
black market in Colorado and Washington state, but the drug, at least
for now, will retain a decidedly underground feel: Users may not know
what's in it.
Less than a year away from allowing pot sales,
regulators are grappling with how to ensure that the nation's first
legal marijuana industry will grow weed that delivers only the effects
that pot smokers want.
Whether it is establishing rules to govern the
growing of marijuana, including the use of pesticides and fungicides, or
accurate product labeling, officials know they will be doing it alone.
Federal agencies that regulate food and drugs are
staying out because pot remains illegal under federal law. That means
the states are starting from scratch to protect consumers from pot that
could be tainted by mold, mildew or unwanted chemicals.
Whatever regulatory scheme officials in the states
choose, there is little reliable product history to even know where to
begin identifying marijuana safety risks, said David Acheson, a food
safety consultant.
When it was illegal, few users could come into the
health department to complain that a stash of weed they bought was bad,
said Acheson, a former assistant commissioner for the Food and Drug
Administration.
"As it becomes legal, we could see many problems emerge. We just don't know," he said.
Medical marijuana product safety has long been a
concern in Colorado. Critics say the regulations were too loosely lax,
and that any new regulations for pot should be stringent, and rigorously
enforced.
Colorado has one operational product testing
facility for marijuana potency and content. Product testing is voluntary
and paid for by interested pot consumers and sellers, not state
regulators.
"I've seen stuff in grow houses - oh my God, you
don't even want to know about," said Genifer Murray, the owner of
CannLabs, a Denver lab that tests marijuana. She said she has seen cans
of bug spray next to marijuana, plants covered with powdery mildew and
lax sanitation.
"There's no other plant like this that you smoke
and eat and use as medicine," Murray said. "Everybody's entitled to a
safe and effective product, and right now it's completely hit and miss.
What exactly are you buying?"
Colorado requires labels on edible pot, including
an ingredient list and recommended expiration date. Potency and dosing,
though, are currently left to the buyer to figure out. Labels read,
"Levels of active components of medical marijuana reported on product
labels are not subject to independent verification and may differ from
actual levels."
The state has detailed production safety guidelines
and a three-page list of pesticides and other chemicals that can't be
used on marijuana, including arsenic and mercury. But in Colorado's
three-year history regulating medical-marijuana production, the state
has levied no enforcement actions for a safety or sanitary violation.
Colorado and Washington officials are considering
going further when it comes to marijuana for sale to all adults, though
neither has decided what to do. The states will first have to decide
whether to treat marijuana like something that is smoked or something
that is eaten.
Colorado currently copies tobacco pesticide
regulations to apply to medical marijuana. But regulators rejected a
proposal to certify "organic" pot grown without any pesticides, leaving
consumers with no way to verify organic processing claims.
Other blank spots facing marijuana product safety:
- Sanitation. Marijuana is a crop difficult to
insure, giving unscrupulous growers an incentive to hide moldy or
otherwise foul pot rather than throw it away.
- Edible marijuana. There are no food-safety
inspections on cannabis-infused food products. Some in the marijuana
industry say the public is at risk from ingredients not related to pot,
and that salmonella or E. coli outbreaks should be of concern.
- Workplace safety. Marijuana producers say the
industry is overdue for worker-safety protections. Of special concern is
the production of concentrated marijuana, or hashish, which is
frequently produced using butane or other explosive solvents.
The National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, the nation's oldest marijuana-legalization advocacy
group, wants to see marijuana treated like an herbal supplement.
Federal law doesn't require rigorous testing of
supplements to prove they are safe, or even that they work. NORML says
pot should be treated like echinacea or vitamin C pills, with government
product intervention only if consumers get sick or a safety issue comes
to light.
"Look at lettuce. Look at cantaloupe. They're
regulated a whole lot more than cannabis, but the reality is even with
those regulations, you can still have outbreaks. That doesn't mean
lettuce and cantaloupe themselves are dangerous," said Paul Armentano, a
California-based deputy national director for NORML.
The group doesn't mind that federal agencies aren't
helping. Noting that liquor regulations vary from state to state and
even town to town, Armentano said a patchwork of marijuana safety
regulations is likely.
Dr. Alan Shackelford, a Denver physician who helped
write Colorado's medical marijuana safety regulations, said that the
absence of federal oversight gives Colorado and Washington big jobs in
pioneering consumer safety standards for marijuana.
"Anything that is going to be offered for sale to
the public needs to have safety and health standards," Shackelford said.
"Time will tell what those should be for marijuana."
Copyright 2013 The
Associated Press modified.
