Has Your Illinois cannabis been remediated?
Months have passed since I’ve created a new original meme, and though I usually don’t follow current trends, this meme matches a topic recently receiving attention: the remediation of cannabis. To go along with the meme, we thought we’d ask the question, “Has your Illinois dispensary cannabis been remediated?”
Cannabis remediation is the process of removing or reducing undesirable elements, contaminants, or pathogens from cannabis products to ensure the product’s safety, quality, and compliance with regulations. Remediation is usually performed when a cannabis crop has failed or is likely to fail testing. Remediation machines work by using various methods to cleanse the product, including but not limited to vacuuming, steam cleaning, UV light, ozone shock, and radiation sanitizing.
The answer to the question if your Illinois dispensary cannabis been remediated depends on a few factors, but the magnitude of cannabis remediation is unknown because Illinois does not require cannabis products to be labelled as undergone remediation. The Botanist was the first Illinois brand to outwardly and purposely promoted that its flower was not remediate. Other brands such as Korner Boys, Redemption Botanicals, Flora Arbor, NEZ, Revolution, Legacy, IC Collective, One Day, Bedford Grow, and 4Front have also stated that they do not remediate their flower.
Testing for Illinois cannabis producers is stricter than in most other legal states, and Illinois notoriously has dry dispensary cannabis. Some insiders and producers claim a correlation between strict testing and dry cannabis that better eliminates contaminants, such as mold, while other producers say there is a difficult sweet spot, if done correctly, for drying and curing cannabis that complies with testing while retaining proper moisture. Illinois’ laboratory testing administrative code states that immediately prior to manufacturing or natural processing of any cannabis or cannabis-infused product or packaging cannabis for sale to a dispensary, each batch shall be made available at the cultivation center, craft grower, or infuser, for an employee of an approved laboratory to select a random sample, which shall be tested by the approved laboratory for microbiological contaminants, mycotoxins, pesticide active ingredients, residual solvent, heavy metals, and an active ingredient analysis.
If a sample of cannabis does not pass the microbiological, mycotoxin, pesticide chemical residue, heavy metals, or solvent residue test, based on the standards set forth in this Section, the following shall apply:
- If the sample failed the pesticide chemical residue test, the entire batch from which the sample was taken shall be recalled, as provided for in the cannabis business organization’s Operations and Management Plan, if applicable, and disposed of in accordance with Subpart I (Destruction of Cannabis).
- If the sample failed any other test, the batch may be used to make a CO2 or solvent based extract. After processing, the CO2 or solvent based extract must still pass all required tests.
The administrative code also states cultivation center shall provide to a dispensary organization the laboratory test results for each batch of cannabis product purchased by the dispensary organization, if sampled. Each dispensary organization shall have those laboratory results available upon request from purchasers of cannabis and cannabis products. Illinois’ list of five approved testing laboratories in Illinois can be found here.
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