- WeedMaps and
seek to educate and encourage our industry toward a higher standard of service, where potency testing, standardized dosage, and Quality Assurance testing (pesticides/fungicides and microbiological contamination) become the accepted and acknowledged industry standard. - Microbiological testing allows dispensaries to identify known human pathogens, determine potential shelf life of medicine, and actively seek to provide patients with the highest quality medicinal Cannabis available.
- All Medicines as well as any alcoholic beverages have information regarding the strength or dosage of the product, it should be no different with Medical Cannabis.
- Many dangerous Pesticides, Fungicides, and Plant Growth Regulators (PGR's) are used on Cannabis, often indiscriminately throughout the flowering stages of growth. These residual toxins create potentially dangerous safety issues to patients when consumed.
- Mold and fungal contaminants should be of concern to anyone who consumes medical Cannabis, especially those that are prone to asthma, allergies, or have a compromised-immune system.
- When cannabinoids pass through the digestive system (edibles) they become much stronger and can lead to uncomfortable experience. Many patients are forever turned off to cannabis because of a bad experience with an overly strong edible.
- Patients who may be intolerant to certain higher anxiety strains can look for options which cause less anxiety or discomfort.
All Tests are Not Created Equal
Why SC Labs? SC Labs is a state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to providing the most accurate medical Cannabis testing available. SC Labs utilizes High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with a Diode Array Detector for potency testing. Other labs rely on the older Gas Chromatography (GC) technology for their testing. SC Labs uses the most advanced and proven technology to determine microbiological safety and detect pesticide residues on medical cannabis. SC Labs seeks to provide a variety of innovative options for testing medical cannabis that set the industry standard. SC Labs follows the same methods already established by the well respected Dutch Pharmacopeia (MOBEC) and United Nations Office of Drug and Crime.
Potency Testing SC Labs provides the most accurate cannabinoid profiling. Accurate results are important in order to allow patients o more substantial way to gauge their dosage. HPLC is superior at method in testing Cannabis for potency because it doesn’t use heat, making it possible to determine accurate levels of acidic cannabinoids, the major ingredients of raw medical cannabis, exactly as they are found in the plant. GC operates at very high temperatures, which decomposes many of the cannabinoids into other forms; it doesn’t provide as accurate of a reading. By using an HPLC, SC Labs has the ability to test for THC, as well as THCA, CBD, CBDA and CBN, with additional cannabinoid testing results on the way.
Microbiological and Pesticide Testing Few laboratories offer microbiological plating similar to our fungal screen. Their screens can take 10+ days to process. SC Labs has invested in technology that allows us to give accurate readings of the total plate count in 3 days as opposed to 10 or more from our competitors who offer plating. The ‘plate count’ shows the number of colony forming units per gram of cannabis flower. Many other laboratories offer a basic pesticide / fungal screen that has very little scientific validity. Fungal screens that look at the sample under a black light or a microscope can’t provide a legitimate representation of the actual fungus present in a sample. These tests may be cheap, but they are not real scientific tests.
SC Labs Basic Quality Screen The Basic Quality Screen includes both a basic fungal screen to determine the overall fungal load (plate count) in a cannabis flower or cannabis product and a basic pesticide screen for over 30 Carbamates – a common class of pesticides. This EPA approved pesticide screen can detect down to parts per million (ppm) levels. SC Labs offers the Basic Fungal Screen and Basic Pesticide Screen with an astounding 3-day turnaround time. Other laboratories offer similar tests, some at a much higher price, and some with little to no validation work to back up their results.
Comprehensive Safety Test SC Labs’ Comprehensive Safety Pesticide Test has been developed to be extremely sensitive by a PhD chemist with several years of experience in the environmental testing field. The Comprehensive Safety Test not only detects all major pesticides used specifically on cannabis, but also tests for potentially harmful fungicides and other Plant Growth Regulators (PGR’s). SC Labs can detect these contaminants at parts per billion (ppb) and parts per trillion (ppt) levels. The SC Labs Comprehensive Safety Microbiological Test has a similar level of sensitivity and is also combined with a plate count. This test uses a combination of Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) instrumentation and standard media based plating techniques not only to quantify, but also provide information on which and how many colony forming units of each species of fungal pathogens are in a sample. We are the only laboratory in the country that tests cannabis using qPCR, which will soon become the standard.
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