1 Lot, 4 Labs, 4 Different Results!?
When it comes to cannabis potency and effects, your friendly neighbourhood stoner is often limited to the information given to them by the company that grows the product. If you look at the different cannabis containers you may have around your home right now, you are sure to see differences from company to company. Who controls what information they provide and how do they get it? We sent a dosi-GMOsi #13 lot sample to our go-to laboratory, as well as three others to see how results vary from lab to lab, see the results below:
While the majority of our testing results come back consistent, there was one much higher number than expected – it was nearly 10% more than what the others had reported for the same two lots. You may be asking, which lab is right? How do we convey four different results?
Testing methods are constantly being developed and the number of compounds that are looked for in cannabis is growing exponentially. In addition to how quickly things are changing, there is no standard method outline for these assessments. For example, with terpenes, some labs only test for 14 terpenes, while others test for 40+. Because of this, OGEN’s Quality Assurance team will thoroughly audit a lab. Our QA team is made up of some of the most detail-oriented and diligent people we know. They want to make sure we are testing for the right things in the right way! We assess every possibility to ensure that we are comfortable working with these labs.
Here are some of the things we verify before moving forward with a lab:
• How they store their material
• What is the breakdown of compounds tested for
• What are their methods for testing
• Where in Canada does the testing take place
When a company makes a product that can impact a person’s experience (like alcohol) you deserve to understand what it can do. We feel it is our due diligence to make sure the research we are doing and the information we are giving you are as correct as they can be. While there is a perception of how cannabinoids and terpenes work together to impact your experience, much research still needs to be done to understand how these compounds interact with people.
In the example of the lot above, the number that we used for our lot was with “lab A”, resulting in 29.3% THC. If you want to see more in-depth information, you can find this lot on our Lot Finder Tool at https://ogen.app/ and you can use the code 6m0221120103 to find see this exact lot in question.
We must challenge every perception and stigma to push the cannabis industry forward, and we are grateful to have a team that does this every single day! To learn more about them, check out our Blunt Conversation with the PIC team or click here to learn more about our processes.
