Laboratory Analysis of Medical Cannabis Products

[Ganjarden]

Harborside Health Center, a city-licensed medical cannabis dispensary, is pleased to announce it has begun laboratory analysis of its medical cannabis products. This effort has been developed in partnership with the Analytical Laboratory Project, which owns and operates the laboratory facility.

All medicinal cannabis products accepted for distribution to HHC will be lab tested for safety and potency. For the first time in the 3000- year history of human cannabis consumption, consumers will be provided a scientific assessment of the safety and potency of products prior to ingesting them. Testing will begin with cannabis flowers and concentrates, and later will include edibles, tinctures, capsules, etc.

The testing techniques will include gas chromatography mass spectrometry, gas chromatography, flame Ionization detection, and plate culture analysis. Over the course of the past year, SMC has developed its analytical methods in partnership with respected bio- chemists from some of the Bay Area's most prestigious institutions*. A formal method validation has been completed, which will be available early next week.

The testing program has two main components: safety screening, and potency quantification. Safety screening will analyze and detect contamination of pathogenic molds, which can threaten the health of patients with compromised immune systems. Potency quantification will provide the percentages of three major cannabinoids: THC, CBD, and CBN. Later stages of the program will include the use of patient surveys to develop a comprehensive database of the efficacy of medical cannabis.

HHC patients will be able to access the testing results in three ways:

labels in display cases, labels on products, and a book of complete test results. Labels will include percentages for THC, CBD, and CBN; and will be posted in medicine display cases, as well as affixed to the products themselves. A book containing complete spectrometry reports for each product will be available at the service counter, for those patients who desire more detailed analytical results.

Testing services will commence with an initial launch period, to identify and develop the logistics of sample collection and result identification. After these issues are fully addressed, the testing service will be made widely available to other medical cannabis collectives, and individual patients. These services will include an independent certification component, so patients can be assured that the medicine they are purchasing has been tested.

During the initial launch, testing will be confined to HHC and the Peace In Medicine collective in Sebastopol, CA. Interested parties may contact Steve DeAngelo (contact info listed below).*available for interview, but not direct attribution, for legal reasons

Place: Harborside Health Center: 1840 Embarcadero, Oakland CA 94606
Contact: Steve DeAngelo: (510) 533-0146/ (510) 467 2245


News Hawk- Ganjarden http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: Harborside Health Center
Author: Steve DeAngelo
Contact: Harborside Health Center
Copyright: 2008 Harborside Health Center
Website: Laboratory Analysis of Medical Cannabis Products

[Soniq420]

Wow

What a fabulous idea.

This really opens up a bunch of possibilities

- the mass spec will reveal the residual nutes that weren't flushed
- they'll be able to vaidate how much flushing corelates with clear
- patients will be able to corelate which metrics perform best for their affliction and choose future strains based on similar values
- mold/disease free certification

I hope this idea spreads - just goes to show you what free enterprise can do when left to develop on its own