What cannabis is teaching us about pesticides and modern agriculture.
By Micah Anderson. An earlier version of this article appeared in Cannabis Confidential.
On October 1st, California is changing the way cannabis is tested for pesticides. The Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) is getting rid of the old system that divided pesticides into Category I and Category II and replacing it with specific action levels for individual pesticides. Beginning in April 2028, the DCC will take the next step, recalibrating many of those limits based on the latest science, adding more pesticides to the testing panel and establishing separate standards for inhalable and non-inhalable cannabis products to better protect consumers.
I generally favor less regulation, particularly in California cannabis, where regulation and taxes have made it extraordinarily difficult to operate legally. But I feel differently when it comes to regulations and standards around contaminants. I think we should have high standards for pesticides, heavy metals and other things that can end up in products people consume, and I don’t think those standards should be weakened as cannabis becomes a bigger industry. If anything, I think the rest of agriculture should be looking at what cannabis has learned and asking whether some of the same standards should apply more broadly.
I feel strongly about this because I have spent more than 30 years growing cannabis and years buying, testing and processing material from farms across California. At LEEF, we have learned that contamination is much more complicated than most people assume. It doesn’t always come from something a cannabis farmer intentionally applied. It can come from neighboring agriculture, soil, water or the history of the land itself.
Cannabis gives us an unusual window into these problems because we test it so aggressively. And after years of seeing what increasingly sensitive testing …
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Author: High Times Contributors / High Times
