Jacob Bell
New Member
Seeing as how it's a medicine and all, many medical marijuana users prefer -- and indeed, request -- that their smokeable flowers are organic. And seeing as how this is Northern California and all -- the GMO-hating, Alice Waters-loving capital of slow food nation -- most local cannabis growers comply, producing pot free from pesticides and herbicides that burns to a fine gray-white ash (if your pot burns to black, that means there's chemicals in it, according to many a connoisseur).
But is it organic? Yes and no. Just like your table tennis set isn't Ping Pong, for the same reasons and ultimately the same effect.
The word "organic" can only be used by United States Department of Agriculture-approved entities. So nothing federally illegal is going to get CCOF-certified anytime soon. That hasn't stopped marijuana providers from using the word, albeit in different forms: Take Mendocino's own Northstone Organics. That also hasn't stopped Oakland's Harborside Health Center from requiring all cannabis sold to the collective be certified "clean" -- essentially organic.
But no such regulations exist in San Francisco, where patients nonetheless ask for organic pot by name on a daily basis -- and, at least officially, can't get it.
In the case of Northstone, the medicine there is "grown with organic nutrients, sustainably," said Matthew Cohen, executive director of the Ukiah-based delivery service, which has patients in San Francisco. "That's what we can say -- we've talked a lot with the lawyers about that one."
Cohen, who added that the company name is merely that -- a name -- and legally cannot claim to offer organic cannabis, even if the growing technique and conditions are identical to the organic tomatoes grown down the road.
Patient demand for organic pot is high -- the patient providers (or budtenders, whatever) at Mission Street's SPARC are asked for organic cannabis at least once a day, says Nicholas Smilgys, the dispensary's marketing director. "Our standard response is that the USDA does not currently certify cannabis as organic, but we follow organic growing guidelines," he said. If a grower can't give a full accounting of his or her growing techniques or uses techniques outside the pale, "we generally avoid" that particular marijuana, Smilgys added.
There are some third-party certification organizations, but San Francisco does not require its dispensaries to use them. All medicine sold at Harborside Health Center's locations in Oakland and San Jose, for example, are certified by Clean Green, an inspection company out of Crescent City run by Chris Van Hook, who is also a USDA organic food inspector. Clean Green is also a third-party inspector in Mendocino County, but somehow hasn't caught on in San Francisco -- no dispensaries here use Van Hook's company, which was recently mentioned in the LA Times.
In the lack of regulations, ultimately organic cannabis -- and determining what is organic -- boils down to trust. Northstone Organics is confident calling its medicine organically grown because the company grows all of the medicine it sells, Cohen says. But for your corner dispensary that doesn't use third-party verification, it's all about a patient-provider relationship, according to medical cannabis patient advocate David Goldman.
Don't expect to waltz into your first dispensary and ask the budtender where certain medicine is grown -- you run the risk of sounding like a Fed. Do keep in mind, however, that if a dispensary's doors are open and people are walking in and out of it, plunking down $60 for four grams of cannabis, there's probably nothing wrong with it; would it sell if it made people sick?
Not with 25 other pot clubs competing for the exact same business it wouldn't. "Can we trust a dispensary to tell us the truth? It's something people have to discover over time," says Goldman. But even that isn't necessarily foolproof. "Like any other produce stand, quality of medicine can vary," he adds, noting that connoisseurs may be more interested in knowing more about the dispensary's grower rather than the dispensary -- if the dispensary is at all willing to disclose that info.
So is your medicine organic? Probably. And also, from the government's standpoint, no. No further questions answered.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: blogs.sfweekly.com
Author: Chris Roberts
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: SF Weekly, LP.
Website: Is Your Medical Marijuana Organic?
But is it organic? Yes and no. Just like your table tennis set isn't Ping Pong, for the same reasons and ultimately the same effect.
The word "organic" can only be used by United States Department of Agriculture-approved entities. So nothing federally illegal is going to get CCOF-certified anytime soon. That hasn't stopped marijuana providers from using the word, albeit in different forms: Take Mendocino's own Northstone Organics. That also hasn't stopped Oakland's Harborside Health Center from requiring all cannabis sold to the collective be certified "clean" -- essentially organic.
But no such regulations exist in San Francisco, where patients nonetheless ask for organic pot by name on a daily basis -- and, at least officially, can't get it.
In the case of Northstone, the medicine there is "grown with organic nutrients, sustainably," said Matthew Cohen, executive director of the Ukiah-based delivery service, which has patients in San Francisco. "That's what we can say -- we've talked a lot with the lawyers about that one."
Cohen, who added that the company name is merely that -- a name -- and legally cannot claim to offer organic cannabis, even if the growing technique and conditions are identical to the organic tomatoes grown down the road.
Patient demand for organic pot is high -- the patient providers (or budtenders, whatever) at Mission Street's SPARC are asked for organic cannabis at least once a day, says Nicholas Smilgys, the dispensary's marketing director. "Our standard response is that the USDA does not currently certify cannabis as organic, but we follow organic growing guidelines," he said. If a grower can't give a full accounting of his or her growing techniques or uses techniques outside the pale, "we generally avoid" that particular marijuana, Smilgys added.
There are some third-party certification organizations, but San Francisco does not require its dispensaries to use them. All medicine sold at Harborside Health Center's locations in Oakland and San Jose, for example, are certified by Clean Green, an inspection company out of Crescent City run by Chris Van Hook, who is also a USDA organic food inspector. Clean Green is also a third-party inspector in Mendocino County, but somehow hasn't caught on in San Francisco -- no dispensaries here use Van Hook's company, which was recently mentioned in the LA Times.
In the lack of regulations, ultimately organic cannabis -- and determining what is organic -- boils down to trust. Northstone Organics is confident calling its medicine organically grown because the company grows all of the medicine it sells, Cohen says. But for your corner dispensary that doesn't use third-party verification, it's all about a patient-provider relationship, according to medical cannabis patient advocate David Goldman.
Don't expect to waltz into your first dispensary and ask the budtender where certain medicine is grown -- you run the risk of sounding like a Fed. Do keep in mind, however, that if a dispensary's doors are open and people are walking in and out of it, plunking down $60 for four grams of cannabis, there's probably nothing wrong with it; would it sell if it made people sick?
Not with 25 other pot clubs competing for the exact same business it wouldn't. "Can we trust a dispensary to tell us the truth? It's something people have to discover over time," says Goldman. But even that isn't necessarily foolproof. "Like any other produce stand, quality of medicine can vary," he adds, noting that connoisseurs may be more interested in knowing more about the dispensary's grower rather than the dispensary -- if the dispensary is at all willing to disclose that info.
So is your medicine organic? Probably. And also, from the government's standpoint, no. No further questions answered.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: blogs.sfweekly.com
Author: Chris Roberts
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: SF Weekly, LP.
Website: Is Your Medical Marijuana Organic?
