Missouri Official Says New Marijuana Testing Protocol Shouldn’t Disrupt Businesses

*“The supply chain will remain intact. You’ll be able to move that material
in and out freely, and you should do so.”*

*By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent*

The head of Missouri’s cannabis testing unit said the new unannounced
visits to collect product samples shouldn’t impact business, in a podcast
by the Missouri Cannabis Regulation Division.

“This is going to be just another arm of compliance, guys,” said Ryan
Bernard, the division’s testing and research unit manager. “So keep this
business as usual 100 percent of the time.”

On July 1, cannabis regulators began arriving unannounced at licensed
cultivation and manufacturing facilities to collect products off the
shelves. They’ll take them to the Missouri State Public Health Reference
Laboratory to be tested for things like mold, pesticides and a whole range
of other things.

Bernard said the process will not disrupt production, and it will be paid
for by “either by DCR’s budget or state public health lab’s budget.”

“The supply chain will remain intact,” he said, “You’ll be able to move
that material in and out freely, and you should do so.”

His team is looking to sample four to seven grams of final finished
marijuana goods. If a package has more than four to seven grams, he said
then they’ll take the whole package.

“I just want to reiterate that it’s going to start as one tag per facility,
meaning that we’re not looking to take 10 tags from a single facility,”
Bernard said. “Then as the infrastructure is developed at the state public
health lab, we’ll slowly start increasing that out.”

Bernard said he’ll be randomly selecting based on the inventory listed in
the state’s seed-to-sale tracking system called Metrc.

“If it’s today, I would go into our seed-to-sale system, pull your
inventory down and then just randomly select a sample to come to your
facility to take,” he said.

If a product fails at the reference lab, he said his team will return to
the facility to collect a “full representative sample.”

“If that product fails at that point, we’re going to initiate an
investigation,” he said. “If the material is no longer available at the
originating facility, at that point, we may sample from dispensaries.”

Like most states, all testing of Missouri cannabis products occurs at
private labs that have been licensed by the state. This is the division’s
first attempt to double check the work of licensed testing labs tasked with
ensuring the safety of Missouri marijuana products.

Lawmakers began allocating money for this kind of sampling to be tested at
the state laboratory in the fiscal year that began on July 1, 2024 with
$3.8 million. Most of it went unspent because the cannabis testing methods
were “still in the process of being implemented,” according to state budget
documents. Another $2.4 million was allocated for the current fiscal year,
and it’s unclear how much of it has been spent.

States across the nation are taking similar proactive steps to establish
reference laboratories to verify private laboratory cannabis testing,
according to the division’s July press release announcing the testing.

“This reference lab will be a pivotal step forward in the evolution of
reliable, science-based cannabis testing protocols,” said Amy Moore, the
division’s director. “We are grateful for all the expertise and
collaboration from many state and national partners, especially from the
Missouri State Public Health Laboratory, that helped launch this initiative
for Missouri.”

*This story was first published by Missouri Independent.*

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