Watch this panel discussion on environmental sustainability and protection from the Cannabis Hemp Conference, in Vancouver.
The panel was moderated by Jeremy Jacob, a CAMCD board member and a partner in The Village Dispensary.
Panelists included Internet Dispensary owner and Cannabis Growers of Canada member Travis Lane, CEO of Eden Labs AC Braddock and Project CBD co-founder and director Martin A. Lee.
Lee said that pesticides and toxins are unfortunately quite prevalent in the cannabis supply, posting to a Californian study that looked at nearly 60 cannabis oil concentrates and found that 80 per cent were tainted by pesticides.
“In Denver they have had over 20 recalls since legalization because of pesticide contamination, in California there’s not a lot of testing of what’s going on in that regard,” Lee said.
Lee said legalization and regulation hasn’t stopped the contamination of cannabis and that medical patients, more vulnerable to immune compromise, are at risk.
“In Washington state it’s actually shockingly worse,” Lee said. “They looked at 26 samples in Washington State – 22 tested positive for pesticides.”
Lee said on one sample alone, researchers found carcinogens, nerve inhibitors, developmental and reproductive toxins.
“I don’t know how representative this sampling of 26 samples is of the entire market, but the fact that they randomly choose these samples and came up with these results is very, very disturbing,” Lee said. “It raises some serious questions about the industry such as it is and where it’s headed.”
Braddock said the extraction process is not a filtering process for pesticides and moulds.
“It is concentrating what’s there,” Braddock said. “That’s what we encourage people to go organic.”
You can read more about the Cannabis Hemp Conference here.
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