Florida Medical Marijuana Goes Through the Wringer at ACS Lab

In a seemingly mundane workplace plaza in Sun City Center, a quiet senior neighborhood simply south of Tampa, ACS Laboratory mans the most important hashish and hemp testing facility within the japanese United States. From the 20,000-square-foot facility, 100 workers in white coats analyze hemp from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and 16 nations, and samples from roughly half of all medical marijuana produced inside Florida.

According to ACS Laboratory president Roger Brown, the state-mandated compliance testing of each batch of cultivated medical marijuana is the essential distinction between Florida’s authorized and illicit markets.

“I’ve six youngsters — three of them are medical marijuana sufferers — and I inform them that you just can’t purchase marijuana from a good friend of a good friend or whoever off the road as a result of you do not know if it is clear and secure,” Brown tells New Times. “Consuming contaminants, like pesticides and heavy metals, which come from the soil, and residual solvents, which come from the solvents used to extract marijuana to make vape cartridges or oils or edibles, might be very, very harmful.”

Headquartered in Boca Raton, ACS Laboratory opened in 2008 as a scientific testing firm. It has grown exponentially since medical marijuana handed through a constitutional modification in Florida seven years in the past. Even earlier than the state instituted compliance pointers, Brown says, ACS was third-party testing medical marijuana for its purchasers. It later shared its experiences with state regulators to assist craft the hashish legal guidelines which are in place at the moment.

“At the time, California had essentially the most strict guidelines for testing marijuana in the entire nation. Then Florida determined that it desires to usurp that,” Brown says. “Florida made its guidelines much more strict than California, and it is nonetheless the state with essentially the most strict guidelines in the entire nation for testing marijuana, so you realize it should be cleaner than anyplace else.”

Whereas different states may take a look at for eight or 10 pesticides and three or 4 residual solvents, Brown says, Florida’s compliance guidelines require screening for 67 pesticides and 21 residual solvents. Using mass spectrometry and ultra-high-performance liquid and fuel chromatography, ACS Laboratory additionally screens for cannabinoid efficiency in addition to flavonoids, that are phytonutrients that play a component in figuring out the plant’s pigment, flower coloration, odor, and style. 

ACS Laboratory is one among 11 marijuana testing labs licensed by the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use. Because marijuana is listed as a Schedule I substance below the federal Controlled Substances Act, ACS Laboratory can solely take a look at medical marijuana inside state strains and might’t depend on the United States Postal Service for delivery. To transport samples, ACS workers pick random batches from licensed rising services throughout the state and drive them again to the Sun City Center laboratory.

Once a batch of medical marijuana has handed its compliance testing, ACS Laboratory points a tamper-proof Certificate of Analysis that enables the dispensary to promote that batch of merchandise. ACS retains every pattern for 45 days in case further state testing is required.

“Then we acquired to destroy it. We destroy loads of marijuana. It’s really unhappy and makes my youngsters cry,” Brown quips. 

Following the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized the regulated sale of hemp federally, ACS Laboratory was allowed to just accept out-of-state and worldwide shipments of hemp, a sort of hashish plant that’s low in psychoactive compounds and has been historically utilized in textile manufacturing and industrial manufacturing.

ACS Laboratory, which holds licenses with the Drug Enforcement Agency and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, can be permitted to conduct psilocybin testing on magic mushrooms. Though psilocybin mushrooms are nonetheless federally unlawful, Brown says, the ability is permitted to check them for analysis and improvement functions.

In 2015, there have been solely a handful of dispensaries within the state, and just one ACS worker examined medical marijuana. Today, with greater than 550 dispensaries throughout the state, the lab has employed greater than 100 workers to check medical marijuana, Brown says. As a proposal to legalize leisure marijuana gathers the required signatures to look on the state’s 2024 poll, Brown is already pondering forward about increasing. 

“We’ll be gearing up and hiring individuals in 2024 in anticipation of the legalization for grownup use within the state of Florida,” Brown says. “I’m absolutely anticipating our throughput to extend between 5 and ten instances, which suggests we’ll want 5 to 10 instances the variety of workers. The facility in Tampa can maintain a specific amount however we’re engaged on options, even now, in preparation for 2025.”