Episode 59 – Cannabis Testing Standards in Illinois – Dr. Bob Miller – ACTLab.com

In this episode, Dr. Bob Miller and I explore the landscape of cannabis testing standards both within Illinois and across the United States. We dive into recent testimony provided by Dr. Miller concerning a notable issue in Illinois’ cannabis testing protocols. Additionally, we cover the process of testing samples, discuss cannabis remediation techniques, examine the nuances of hemp, and much more!

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in this episode of the Cole memo I’ll be sitting down with Dr Bob Miller Dr Miller works at a Cannabis Testing Lab that is licensed in the state of Illinois and I believe has operations across the United States but we’ll get into that this is the Cole memo I am your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to find the audio video or transcriptor version of any episode please refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you’ll find link that will take you to our website which will display the transcript for this episode in the platforms where you can find this episode in audio or video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply note the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use the search functionality to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of the episode the new search functionality that I rolled up is in the top right hand corner of the co memo.com you might also find any links that we reference during the episode so that you might be able to do your own research if you’re not listening to this episode of the Cole memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to thec memo.com patreon it’s a great way to support our show but another way to support our show is at the memo.com support you can make a one-time monthly or yearly contribution of your choice that’s right if you have a few dollars to throw my way you can do that at the memo.com ssupport but one of the best ways to support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow our show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment or post a review your engagement and support is appreciated enjoy this episode of the Cole memo today is February 21st [Music] 2024 [Music] so I’d like to welcome Dr Bob Miller on to the show we’ll be talking about a lot of different topics today but before we do that Dr Miller do you mind introducing yourself to my audience sure yeah Bob Miller um I’m the chief scientific officer for ACT Laboratories uh been with act for about four and a half years have about 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry uh heads of quality at multiple companies including Johnson and Johnson fiser and most recently Gilead at the time at act laboratory came in as the COO of act uh then became co-ceo and now I’m focusing on the science as as the lead of the CSO awesome and I’m so excited to talk about some of the science behind Cannabis Testing today um and and there I just kind of broke what you do do you want to tell us you’re in Illinois and multiple States but it’s Cannabis Testing right that’s correct so uh we are in six states we’re in Illinois Ohio Pennsylvania New York and Florida in Michigan I’d say 95% of the work we do is in cannabis we do also do some hemp testing but our our claim to fame is Cannabis Testing correct awesome awesome and I’m just curious before we get into the body of today’s subject can you tell our listeners how does testing even work yeah sure so we we take uh you know we take our role very very important as I say we’re actually the the group that ensures the quality and safety of the product before it goes to the consumer so in all the states that we do business um any product that is marketed to the consumer needs to be tested by an independent laboratory before it can be sold to the public awesome yeah and I guess just to put a finer point on it one thing that I misunderstood uh but had my uh understanding corrected on was like this joint I have in this little bottle here for example it’s not tested itself right it it’s that a a batch that was representative or a sample that was representative of the batch was tested is that correct that’s correct so every state each of them have separate requirements but with that being said what is done is defined is when you have as you can imagine say a batch is you know 5,000 joints um what is done is there has to be a sampling of that a randomized sampling of that material and the number of samples that we actually do bring in is really defined by the state and then we bring that material in and it’s tested for a series series of things I always like to think of it as there’s really two two different types of testing that we do there’s the potency test uh which is the one that the consumers obviously see that states the level of THC and then there’s a whole series of contaminant or potential contaminant tests that are all still done as part of that process gotcha gotcha it’s very interesting and I’m just curious uh so it would be like I’m a grower I’m a licensed grower and my batch is ready but I need to get it tested before I put it on the shelves right so I call the folks it act laab act.com by the way for anybody that’s interested and then you come and gather the samples or or do I gather how does that part of it work yeah so what happens is as you might imagine there’s a pretty tight control of how much material is removed and then transported to our facility so that grow processor will call us and say I’m ready to have my product tested they fill up some necessary paperwork uh we then go in and take the sample um using again some predefine um procedures to get a a sample that’s representative of the batch and then that material is brought back to our lab and tested um what we have to do is we’re very particular on how much material we take from The Grow processor and then ultimately how much do we test and then how much do we ultimately destroy so that there’s a very tight control there it is also put into what we call the seed toale system so the seed toale system is the tracking system which would then allow um the state to be able to get a feel for what’s being tested who’s it for and what are the results and then that also creates what we call certificate of analysis and the certificate of analysis is really a summary of all the results that we did to test for that specific problem very cool very cool so now not only the potency testing but like you say the um what was the other part of the test it contaminant testing so yeah so what you know to put a little bit greater detail for the state of Illinois um we do microbiological testing um there’s a number of different U species that we’re testing for we do myotoxin testing myotoxin is a toxin that can be uh that can be um released from a specific types of mold so we do microt toxin testing we do heavy metals testing uh which is a series of different uh metals that could be inherent in the process uh then we do residual solvents and again depending on how that flour is further processed often times there’ll be solvents to extract the Cannabis so there is a test for residual solvents and then there’s pesticides those are the series of tests that are required in the state of Illinois gotcha and maybe that leads us up to the video the testimony that I saw that and maybe that can crack US Open to discussion does that sound like a good transition to you sure that’s fine cool all right I’m going to just play the short video so that people know what we’re talking about and then I’ll give you the opportunity to like elaborate if that sounds good so that’d be great Co buts overall success I want to talk about one aspect I I apologize hopefully won’t be too in depth in chemistry but a situation right now we’re living in Illinois in Illinois today we have a pesticide test that we cannot do the test requires us to test for 350 different pesticides if we were to even get the materials of known Purity it would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars even to be able to do that but what it makes it worse is it says the specification should be the tightest specification of any product that would have that pesticide so for example we’re having arguments right now having a p decide and we’re using a specification of what’s in cheep because the way the regulation is written you have to test for 350 and the criteria you have to use is the tightest of all specs for all types of food stuffs so the absurdity of that situation is just Paramount what’s it driving non-compliance no since none of us can actually do the test every laboratory is doing something different many of them are not even doing the test so with the intention of creating the most stringent criteria actually caused the opposite that actually is causing non-compliance so really important about regulations all right now um that sounded like like I said it sounded very much related to what we were just talking about you mentioned the pesticide test tell us a little bit more more about this topic this is the first time I’ve ever heard of it yeah so maybe just give you a little pretext of what that that little sign uh the uh the video that you just played um I was testifying in the state of Pennsylvania um as they’re considering adult useth legislation and they asked me to speak about what makes up a good program um and how can they learn from experiences in other states and I was using just that situation to really bring bring back to the table that it’s a really really important that when creating legislation and specifications that there’s conversations going on between the regulators and the Laboratories and that was just one of the examples I Ed so I just want to put that into context yeah so um with in the state of Illinois um it is um as you might imagine because there’s no federal requirements every state essentially defines their own specifications and what what the state of Illinois has done related to pesticides is it really essentially says that and I can actually read it uh but what the what the requirement says is that a catbus sample should be deemed to have passed it if it satisfies the most stringent acceptable standard for pesticide chemical residue in any food item as defined in CFR blah blah blah blah blah so what that really does is I was kind of I said 350 it’s actually in excessive 350 I started to count them this morning and kind of gave up but it’s in excess of 350 but what what it says is you here’s are all the the different pesticides that cannot be present or cannot be present at a certain level and it could lists of of many many different pesticides and then it says if you find any of those pesticides you have to apply the most stringent criteria of food stuffs so as I was mentioning what that really does it’s really a test and and I should also mention in the state um is also put in as a statute so it’s really hard to change the the regulation so what is it caused is because it cannot be achieved um it really has caused Laboratories to interpret in very very different ways and in very inconsistent fashion the great news right now um is uh there has been a new head of compliance in the state and we’re actually talking about literally as we speak so there is that acknowledgement at the state level uh this is needs to be changed so I’m really really optimistic that over time will’ll be able to make changes that are necessary to get a a a more realistic and relevant criteria for pesticides gotcha do you think that consumers have anything to worry about no I don’t because what you know if you go across all the other states that we do business some states have done a really nice job of looking at what are the what pesticides should we be looking at and what’s a realistic spec and we’re seeing more and more states that actually do it based on safety data where they’ll establish the criteria based on known safety data so um I think in general there the the public at this point should not be concerned provided that testing is being done um with a reasonable level of uh specificity so I think as we get a more realistic specifications and ensure all labs are doing it this same way we’ll be in a very we’ll be in a much better place than we are today gotcha gotcha and um anything else with regard to the pesticide subject uh itself and how it relates to testing no I don’t think so I think again um I’m I’m hopeful with with the new the new individuals on the on the in the program that we’re going to look to other states and how they’ve done it because some states have done it well and some states stes have not done it so well so hopefully you know looking at it to say how do we make it let’s test for the right pesticides IE that could be present in um cannabis let’s make sure that we have methodologies that allow for the detection of those pesticides and let’s ensure that all Laboratories are doing in in a consistent fashion um and and establishing realistic specifications when you have all those pieces and parts in play then we’ll have a much more robust program than what we have today gotcha now Switching gears a little bit you mentioned microbiological contaminants and testing with that um I’m curious like I like we spoke about before we went on air I’ve talked to several licensed operators that they themselves feel the uh regulations are too strict and of course you could maybe consider that anecdotal uh because they were just you know a few operators that I spoke to but on the other side of that as a consumer as I think I ALS also mentioned to you the weed is just like so dry it has to be so dry in order to comply with the regulations and this is what the uh operators told me they said Cole we’d love to sell you fresh weed like we know how to dry and cure weed to an enjoyable uh you know level but that level is is not compatible for lack of better words with the state regulations in other words you you kind of have to as they claim overy uh your product have you heard similar feelings do you feel that maybe we went a little too strict with these regulations uh uh yes yes and yes um so again comparing and contrasting specifications in in the state of Illinois versus others in general uh the microbiological specifications for those that are quantitative one meaning that you get a number for there about oneth the specification for other states in which we do business so as I tell people when you think about microbiological contamination you really need um really two or three things to get microbial growth you obviously need microbes you need the bugs uh you need moisture and you need is a closed environment and when you think about weed that’s being sold in a package you have all three so you will have some level of microbial presence what you’re making reference to is because the specifications are so tight in Illinois if you remove the water or or treat it in other Fashions there are things to sort of remediate weed but in any case if you remove the water you will minimize the amount of microbial growth so what you’re seeing is you’re seeing the drying of the product to a much lower level of moisture to be able to meet the specification of the microbials but now have an impact on the the actual quality of the material in that it has to be so dry right right and I actually I don’t remember a few years ago the Chicago Sun Times even did a story on this and to your point uh I just found the part where they pointed out in Illinois microbiological contaminants such as mold yeast and various bacteria are measured in Colony forming units per gram or cfug with Labs culturing them on testing plates to count them for Easton mold Illinois allows up to 1,000 cfug Colony form Colony forming units per gram but Michigan allows Houston mold up to 100,000 so like you said I think you were right on the dot on10th not a mathematician y but yeah know that that’s in general that’s it is about on10th and and what we see is with multi-state operators that may be doing business in other states they really have to modify their their weed to be able to meet the criteria and they kind of know um that you know the consumer experience is impacted but that has to be done to be able to meet the specification absolutely right and then you know to to your point you kind of brought it up earlier um it it it kind of this is what this all leads to the operators have told me and this is like several operators not just a few uh that they have to employ what they’re now calling kill steps they don’t call it remediation anymore uh that it seems like remediation would be the idea if you failed a test then you would remediate your product and I want to talk to you about that but really quick I just wanted to ask if you’ve heard the same that most operators feel they have to employ kill steps before they even send it to testing so that they can almost Ensure that it pass test passes testing absolutely yeah yeah so in clarification mediation is really post failure what can you do so your common is correct but um there are a number of different types of things you could do as a kill step um there’s ozone treatment there’s UV treatment UV light there’s even some things are LED uh supposedly that will work where you add a a cold or cryo preserv step but all those are intended to reduce that microbial burden that I was referring to um and that can work quite effectively what we’re being told about that um is taken to the extreme you’ll start to see discoloration of the weed you definitely will start to see uh reductions in THC levels uh in the product and something we didn’t talk about which is tpin tpin is a is another test that we do which um is not required but many many of our uh customers are asking for tpin is another uh material that’s in Hern in cannabis that has some its own phac I’ll call it pharmacological effects I.E anti-anxiety allegedly sleep other things but it also has synergistic effects with the cannabinoids but that will also be impacted if it’s treated with that kill step so trying to meet the spec really starts to really have a uh impact on the overall quality of the product that the consumer will see yeah absolutely and with all that said I’d like to first of all establish the fact that correct me if I’m wrong remediation SL kill steps is not unique to the Cannabis industry in fact these tools they’re using are from other Industries right absolutely yes yes they are cool and with that I wanted to ask the same question I asked earlier do consumers have anything to worry about with regard to remediation and the reason I asked that is because sometimes people hear like irradiation as a form of remediation and they think they’re getting like nuclear weed or something um yeah can you can you weigh and is there any reason to be concerned there is no there’s no indications whatsoever that that has any U uh impact on the quality of the product from any kind of residual um know treatment material that’s being done to do that kill Stu that there’s no evidence of that at all they don’t need to be concerned thank you thank you and um to to something that we brought up earlier that I wanted to make sure we touched Bas on as you said remediation is is a what did you say again it’s like a after yeah so what what what can occur is if if after all those specific uh actions we were just referring to and yet the product still doesn’t meet specification from a microbiological side the material can be brought back and extracted to be able to be used for different means so that’s what I’m really calling about remediation once the once the uh material has been treated and still doesn’t meet the criteria there’s really no way to bring it back but other tend to extract it into you know with solvents and it creates other other challenges but nonetheless you can extract the THC into organic solvents and then use it for other types of products and that’s often times what people do if it doesn’t meet that the necessary criteria gotcha and yeah that’s what I was just about to ask about so if I could put that in a bottle really quick and please correct me if I get this wrong but if a cannabis company sends a batch in for testing folks and it fails they can remediate the sample and uh extract the remediated product but for use in an infused product but it still Must Pass State Testing did I get all that right that’s absolutely right and and solvents will absolutely kill um any of those microbes or essentially the microbiological time doesn’t come with it because you’re using solvents so what it will do is effectively I’ll call it a kill uh but now you have um U infus you have material which you then can Infuse to other products like like a gummy or something like that edible product yeah and similar to that but not at all related to remediation to kind of shift gears I guess before I do that do you have any other thoughts on uh kind of the the old topic that we just discussed remediation kill steps stuff like that before we move on no I don’t think so cool um so like I said unrelated of that but you just made me think of it because you talked about infusing you know an extract into infused Goods uh I’ve talked to the Illinois hemp growers association way back in the day and and I’m under the impression that for years now we’ve had a um variance that allows cultivators to use hemp derived canabo in their infused products in fact I just uh interviewed marimed the other day and they spoke about how they choose to primarily use um hemp derived cannaboids within their state legal uh infused products um do you see a lot of that as a Cannabis Testing Lab like using the hemp derived canabo in infused products uh not really uh we have been involved in a number of states really looking at uh what I call the lit market and uh what that really relates to as you know you see things uh like Delta 8 that is available for sale in non-regulated no locations like a gas station or so on and um when you what the farm bill absolutely allows you to do is to take a hemp and it’s major component is CBD um and be able to use that what we have seen is um some groups taking that material and then chemically modifying it to create Delta 8 and Delta 9 and what we have seen in those cases is if it’s not done in an appropriate fashion you start to get a lot of other things which are um in some aspects know hemp derived intoxicant so we’ve seen yeah in situations like that and I know there’s definitely interest in many states about how to ensure the safety of those materials which are available and I’m looking at potentially having to test them to verify that they have what they you know what they are is what’s on the label yeah and I want to get back to that topic because I know that you’ve spoke about that topic at length I want to give you the floor to be able to talk about you know if it sounds like there is some room for concern on the subject of hemp at least from your perspective so but I’m just curious again uh on the hemp dve cannaboids in kind of a state regulated environment I just find that fascinating especially given what you just said and what we will be talking about um the reason I find it so fascinating is because to me it makes economic sense you can Source these materials low and since Illinois has limitations on the market you can almost sell them at a higher rate so I am just curious like do people that you work with like use hemp derived cannabinoids in their infused products like per the variance allows and the reason I’m asking is like I didn’t know if it was like they would like even tell you because at the end of the day there is really no difference so like I didn’t even know if they would tell you like hey by the way these chocolate bars have hemp in them hemp derived canids yeah we don’t you’re absolutely right on so we don’t really hear about it um and nor would there be any reason for them to share that with us um the only time that we would uh see something like that is when we do testing we’ve done testing the same product over and over again we do something called Trend analysis where we continuously look to see how’s the product performing during that Trend analysis we saw something unusual in that we got some additional canabo that we don’t typically see it’s our practice to go back to them and say hey this product met specification but boy it looked different it was something different that would be the only time that we’d hear about oh we we changed sources or we looked at a different Source but it’s not very common for a a grow processor to to to share that with us because we’re there just to really see does a meter not meet the specifications required by the state yeah thank you for uh weighing in on that um and I’d love to give you the floor now um delta8 hemp uh before we got on air you talked about the fact that you’ve been kind of speaking about this subject and you think there is some room for concern uh tell us about uh hemp and you know Delta a especially from like a scientific pers perspective I’d love to hear uh your perspective yeah yeah so uh as again as you know the farm bill U allowed on a federal level hemp to be U consumed to used and the major component from a a cannabinoid perspective CBD um so definitely hemp CBD direct connection um and and done pretty I’ll call it pretty safely what people have started to realize is they then take that CBD and then chemically modify it so by and they use some pretty there’s a there’s a number of ways to do it but um it tends to potentially leave acids because you have to treat the CBD or other um heavy metals because you may have to do some other kind of synthetic work to get to either Delta 8 or Delta 9 and what we have seen we did some work in Pennsylvania where we actually went on the storefront and actually just went to some local stores and bought it and it was labeled as delta8 product and lo and behold of those 21 samples that we tested at that time only four of them actually contained what they said they were supposed to contain about the levels of Delta 8 all the others either had Delta 9 in them some didn’t have any Delta 8 and one that I always use as an example and actually when I’ve testified I used this example on a regular basis amazingly so one material had one had one 1,200 milligrams of Delta 9 in it which if somebody were obviously to take that that would just have a profound effect so the need of being able to really control the quality of the materials um that are available like Delta 8 is really really important I have no doubt that there’s some companies that are doing it the right way in that they get the conversion from CBD to Delta 8 really don’t have many other things but because it’s such an in uncontrolled environment we have definitely seen other situations where either because of purposeful misleading of the public or not understanding the chemistry what they’ve created is what I call this cannabis soup of many many different um cannabis containing materials as well as things like heavy metals and acids that were just left over from their their chemical reactions which which were not done in an appropriate fashion yeah gotcha and that’s uh thank you for boiling it down to that because I was about to ask you people are surprised when I say this but actually the first time I tried Delta 8 I’ve got a picture of the product was in 2019 in an Illinois dispensary this was a Delta 8 disposable I’d never heard of it before but I think to your point please correct me if I’m wrong you’re not saying that Delta 8 is or any canabo really is uh that we have any room for concern uh with regard to just consuming that compound or molecule if you will your concern is the sourcing materials and how what might actually be in it right yeah I mean Delta 8 is psychoactive like Delta 9 but that’s a whole different conversation but my my my focus right right now is saying how do we ensure that that material that is being marketed as delta8 is truly what’s on the labels in the bottle and we we’ve got enough uh information and we’re going to be doing some additional work looking at other uh know purchasing other materials to see has it gotten any better to say Can can a consumer purchasing Delta really feel comfortable what they’re getting is only Delta and it’s at the levels which the label indicates it is and right now I’m not convinced that that’s that’s the case so I’m curious what do you think the solution is to that issue at least from a testing Labs perspective do you think it would be that if you’re going to sell these products they need to go through the same types of protocols that other intoxicating can cannabis products go through absolutely that that’s the solve that’s the solve now it becomes it’s a much more complicated thing because as you probably know you can get these things on Amazon right so you know being able to just go to you know requ you know few things requiring them those materials not to be readily available it should be behind the counter right that’s one and some states have done that uh making sure that they don’t have labeling which glorifies them that they don’t even realize what you know particularly what our children are taking you know what what is this material right so I think being able to make it not as flashy advertising wise is another piece we should do and then the third one is to have similar types of Standards to be able to say again what what is in the what is in the bottom on the label yeah and I’m just curious like I recently heard similar calls I won’t get too specific because it’s in the realm of politics but I’ve heard you know people call for exactly the idea that you uh just described which is like hey let’s just subject them all to testing so that we can at least make sure this stuff is safe right and I feel like that’s agreeable uh very agreeable um but unfortunately it seems like some people that may have a vested interest kind of in the market have been like H maybe maybe we don’t allow them to sell their products and get tested so it seems like what first started about a debate around Public Safety has now become a debate around whether or not you know more people should be licensed I’m curious as a scientist and somebody who seemingly cares about the Public’s Health do you what’s your perspective on that issue I mean safety or yeah and I’ve heard this because I again I testified number States and it’s it’s a tough conversation right because you you have I’m sure some really good hemp Farmers that do a really nice job and their product is probably as as good as as any cannabis product right and um and i’ I’ve met some of those people in some of these these testimonies but it’s the same old story right you only get the people that get punished are all the people doing it the the wrong way right and everybody gets punished as a result of it punished I’m putting that in quotes um but I always when I talk about this I really talk about it from the perspective of um not only you know I have a PhD in chemistry but I’m also a pharmacist um I can tell you and I I always through all my my lifetime in the pharmaceutical industry always ask myself would I give this product to my child to my parents to whoever and right now I’d say unequivocally Delta eight the way is today I would not just because I can’t ensure the safety of it and that to me and when you when you’re regulator those are things that are obviously the the important part of this right how do I protect the public so as much as it it has an impact on I’ll callot the good guys and girls that are doing it right I get that um you just have to say because of what’s out there and the RIS of those materials there has to be greater control yeah in other words if I could please please correct me on this if I’m wrong I don’t want to summarize your thoughts incorrectly in other words prohibition just isn’t the answer the answer really is regulation you know absolutely absolutely well said well said yeah that you know I I hate to use a kind of a Charged example but I think it it relates here uh some people will say you can’t stop abortions you can only stop safe abortions and I think that that logic applies here you can’t stop the cell of these molecules or let’s call them drugs uh but you you can certainly stop the safe sale of them if you’re not going to let people get reg you know regulated and subject them to the same standards so yeah yeah because again when I when I’m in those test but you hear Amazing Stories on how these products have helped patients and so I can’t I’m not denying any of that right it’s just say let’s do it in a safe manner if indeed it has uh pharmac well it does have pharmacological relevance let’s at least make sure that how it’s being done is done being done in a safe fashion yeah yeah well um any other thoughts I’d to wrap up with one last subject but any other thoughts on the the topic of hemp derived canabo no no really cool well I feel like I saw um you were talking about uh I didn’t see this actually until this morning um that like the Pennsylvania hearing that you had also had like this paperwork that you provided and you talked about uh current issues with lab testing you know like how cons consumers will buy based off of THC uh percentage which obviously as you mentioned earlier maybe they should take into account more things like tpen Etc um but I’m curious I’ve heard of the flip side of that issue since consumers are looking for high THC levels that there have been allegations that Laboratories have false oh you’ve actually even included that in your um you said in some of the worst cases in other states Laboratories have falsified or incentives have been created for companies to laboratory shop uh for results that yield desired results do you mind talking about that uh a little bit yeah sure so uh when you think about uh cannabis in general it’s one of the few materials when you think about items that we consume whereby the higher the THC level the more a a grower processor can charge and at least today and and hopefully over time that will change people think the higher the better right without ignoring the fact about well there’s as you were just saying the Entourage effect between tpes and the experiences and so on and so forth but with that being said today the higher THC the more you can charge what we have absolutely seen and I’ve had personal um examples whereby unscrew scrupulous Laboratories and I would say unscrupulous grow processors are willing to pay for higher potency numbers even if those numbers are not legitimate um and I’ll give just one example we had U was not in the state of Illinois was one of our other states we were bringing on a new customer his question to me was well what’s your price for a potency test and do you have two different prices and I said uh no we have one price it’s the potency test and there said you mean you don’t give us an an extra you know to get a higher number that I can pay extra money for and this was recent so wow it is happening right so um and to me two things happen as a result that one is the consumer has an economic impact right they think they’re buying 30% THC flour and it’s 20% THC that’s one and a second one uh and again this was one a real life example where we were talking to a neurologist where he was saying I had you know I was giving C to my patient and they were having seizures and sometimes they were having seizures and other times they weren’t I couldn’t understand what was going on and what we came to conclude was the material that they had gotten they were getting two different sources of material and one of those materials didn’t have the level of THC they thought they did so here was an example where there was a safety issue whereby the the neurologist felt that the patient should be under control yeah suggested them to get certain material certain t at sea level and found out the material even though it was labeled that way was not and actually they were seizing and and it was it was a big haha moment for me too but definitely it’s happening um and uh we really need to really get that under better control because nobody wins in that situation um and we really think I think it’s just really important to again get you know what’s in the bottle is on the label yeah and I’m curious you know I don’t mean to like poke a hole in the entire business model that you’re operating in but do you think I’m just curious some people will jokingly say well this stuff’s not made in the same place that Tylenol is made and what they mean by that I think is like there’s not like when you take a Tylenol you know every Tylenol is like pretty well the same and you’ve got history in the pharmaceutical industry so correct me if I’m wrong but I guess my question is I’m curious is it is it the idea that they’re even able to shop around cuz like the whole term thirdparty independent Labs make it sound like you’re just like randomly assigned a lab or at least that’s how I interpreted it when I first heard that phrasing but as you say you very much are in charge of who tests your product which I believe can lead to issues what are your like thoughts about like should there just be one body you know or well I I think yeah I don’t think you can ever have one body to do testing I think what we definitely push for and we’re definitely seeing that movement now is to for state regulatory authorities to have their own laboratory not to do testing of all the product but to set standards and to be able to be that quote unquote tiebreaker um at the end of the day and we’ve seen some states do it very very well where they continuously look at the data being generated by various Laboratories they Trend the data and say wait a minute there’s something looks anomalous here go back and do this right so we’re very supportive of having a strong regulatory Authority in these states making sure that they’re staff by chemists that truly understand the things that that we do and I think it will help us set some high level standards to get a greater level of consistency the other piece that um very we very much um are pushing for is the fact that we should be doing blinded samples the only way you’re really going to be able to see how labs are doing things is to give them material of an unknown potency and send it on to all the Laboratories and have them all tested to have such a program though you really need to have a central body to be able to manage that and we’re seeing in various States like Michigan just recent they’re they’re building a lab my understanding is Illinois now um has location for a lab and with the the new head of compliance really look into put a lot more teeth into that we really encourage that that will allow us to keep Laboratories much more honest and to be able to have the necessary oversight that when a again when a patient comes in and gets that product they could feel relatively comfortable that you know the material they’re taking is free contaminants and is is of the stated potency gotcha and um I did I actually do have one one more question I I apologize I told you that was my last question but I also have a followup to what you just said how is testing done in other Industries like when I get a beer it says how much percentage is on the beer and then I use the example of Tylenol and then I could even throw out cigarettes I’m guessing it’s all different for each industry but I’m just it is it is but and I should also mention I was the head of quality at Johnson and Johnson doing T all so I know all too well so everything you said about tinel is absolutely true but the difference in this industry is and I’ll go back to the pharmaceutical or or the Tylen example there was an FDA right the Food and Drug Administration had a control right and at the end of the day there was a group that was continuously monitoring continuously had oversight and could do random Audits and could do that and they were very very well staffed so in the pharmaceutical and I call the over counter business like title you had a governing body that set standards and in force them we don’t have that in cannabis what we do have is we have States and each state is doing it a little bit different so as a result of it the good news is we’re definitely moving towards a a FDA like I’ll put it like approach in that we’re putting regulatory bodies in place that have scientific expertise That Could set relevant standards up until the time that cannabis becomes an improved product do you do you have like an FDA to be able to manage it on a you know on a nationwide basis but right now where we are is we’re doing it on a state on a state-by-state basis and and some states are are doing a much better job than others one more followup before my last question since uh alcohol and tobacco are not scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act are they subject to those same FDA standards there are standards I don’t believe FDA monitors though I know there I I I I don’t know that answer I know there was conversations that FDA was having about controlling um uh cigarettes but I believe that was only ecigarettes so I don’t I do not believe they have oversight bodies but I don’t honestly know what they are yeah you get why I’m asking that though it seems like in other Industries there’s like a regulatory body that’s just kind of there and you have to answer to them but here there is a regulatory body but there are like these middlemen these third party independent Labs of which there are many to choose from um and so yeah that’s kind of where I’m like Curious like how does it work in other Industries so gotcha um so last question and I meant to ask it earlier you had mentioned uh you know possibly working uh and I’ve heard the state mention this before uh that they would be working with the the AG to kind of do something about hemp um was it the idea that you’d like be helping them with the the hemp testing as you said since you do hemp testing or what’s what’s the idea there um I I yeah my my understanding is they want to un and again it’s it’s all the states are sort of it’s on their agenda about how do we regulate this and as part of Regulation I think one of the first things is what’s out there and I think so where where they’re starting with is saying okay what what are they seeing out in the the market place and how do we you know based on those findings how do we then put some level of tighter control um with that so um from what I’m understanding they do want to start doing some I’ll call it surveillance think of a better word surveillance testing where they go in and buy product just to see what it looks like much like what we did in Pennsylvania at the request of the Department of Health it’s a similar type of approach it seems like Illinois as our other states are really starting to amp up this whole area just to see what’s out there and then I think with the premise being once they that like what are we going to do to control it regulate it because that my you know my expectation is it’s it’s going to be quite varied what we’re going to find that’s very very interesting to hear so um that’s kind of what I thought they were referring to they had said you know that this is a a big public safety issue and that they’d like to do something um and I figured that that’s I mean what else would you do other than you know checking what’s out there so that you can more authorative say like hey this is a problem you know and yes right yes yes so well it’s been a wide ranging conversation today uh Dr Miller and I’d love to have you back on the show sometime to talk about more you know I’m sure there’s more that we could get into and I’m sure there’s more to discuss in the future but before we go was there anything that we discussed today or anything that we didn’t discuss today I wanted to give you the space uh for the last word yeah no I I again I think you know at at no act Laboratory is we take our job very seriously I take my job very seriously in that we’re that last step to ensure product going to that Marketplace is safe and effective and you know we’re very committed to um working with Regulators to develop a a more robust program with the idea being that you know to ensure that that safety and efficacy of the products um at a at an upcoming Mee love to talk to you about another program that we’re working on right now is about how we can Envision how we’re going to raise the standards of all Laboratories around the US I would love to have you have talk a little B about it’s a concept called trust and testing um and would love to talk to you about another time is that if we can’t expect the product ever to be you know the the regulations to ever be National is there a way that Laboratories themselves can raise the standards almost like a self- policing approach that raise the standards and above what’s out there so I’d love to come back and talk to you about what that program is and what we think the vision is moving forward absolutely Absol absolutely well there’s your uh your spoiler for next episode folks so uh well cool Dr Miller I just want to say thanks again folks the link will be in the podcast description aclab docomo aclab docomo Miller thank you once again thank you

The Cole Memo