Marijuana: Keep it Clean

Most people find it hard to regard any business and any professional who deals with marijuana as legitimate. But it’s not fair. Because for the thousands of people in the U.S. that rely on cannabis to treat symptoms ranging from nausea to chronic seizures, the marijuana industry is oftentimes a last hope for treatment. The taboo that we place on marijuana, medical or not, has a very real impact on the quality of the treatment that these patients are able to get. Instead of being able to trust the drug like you and I could trust an ibuprofen pill, medical marijuana patients usually do not know how strong their dosage is and also risk consuming a wide range of contaminants along with their treatment. The pressure that results from the prevailing negative view of the drug scares away chemists needed to test marijuana and prevents most medical marijuana dispensaries from even having a quality control facility to rely on.

The availability of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes is rapidly increasing in America. 20 states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, and you probably remember Washington and Colorado approving recreational use of the drug over a year ago. Of course, testing labs have not been able to keep pace, and dispensaries across the country have no choice but to sell untested and unregulated marijuana.

Quality control labs, as a part of the marijuana industry, serve a two-fold purpose when testing product. They first measure potency with a technique called high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in order to determine the amount of active ingredient present in a certain batch of marijuana. The main source of the effects of marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), but no dose of the drug has the exact same amount. People often report getting too much or too little of the desired effects from a prescribed measure, either freaking them out with the intense psychoactive reactions or failing to fully cure their symptoms.

In addition to potency testing, these labs also conduct safety tests to ensure that sold marijuana will not contain traces of dangerous compounds like pesticides, mold, and microbes such as E.Coli and Salmonella. Gas chromatography (GC) is a popular method used in labs to test for any contaminants and, when combined with mass spectrometry, reveals the composition of chemicals in a sample of marijuana.

Labs still have a ways to go in developing new methods to test potency and safety, however. A sample of marijuana can contain a carboxylated form of THC called THC-acid, and when put through GC, the THC-acid decarboxylates to become regular THC. This inflates the potency reading of the sample and, in the end, gives the patient a smaller dose of the drug than he or she would need. Imagine taking a prescribed amount of cold medicine, let’s say, but never getting the relief you paid for because the medicine was not thoroughly tested. This is the reality that marijuana patients often face when they seek treatment.

There is a real market, with a real supply and demand, in marijuana. And if we’re talking about medical marijuana, then there is a real need for the product too. Yet, testing labs have not received the support they need to keep up with the ever-increasing number of people that can now legally buy cannabis. We’ve already allowed marijuana use to grow past a point of no return, so it’s time that we recognize and start respecting the drug for what it is: an industry. By casting off our childish aversion to cannabis and allowing testing centers to ensure the safety of this industry’s product, we can give medical marijuana patients a fair chance at treatment.

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I feel the need to state that I, personally, do not support marijuana use other than for necessary medical treatment. It’s a moral issue.

All seriousness aside, I'm Zack, a high school senior interested in studying Political Science next year who loves to run and swim.