Enhance Your Product Safety with ACS Laboratory's Cannabis Testing Solutions
ACS Laboratory's comprehensive cannabis testing services span over 30 safety, quality, and R&D tests. Lab testing cannabis applies to hemp and cannabis products of all kinds, from plant to finished goods to packaging. Potency and purity panels analyze cannabinoids, terpenes, residual solvents, pesticides, heavy metals, and microorganisms using sophisticated equipment and methods designed to protect customers and improve outcomes.
This article explains how lab testing cannabis is critical to improving industry standards and how ACS Laboratory keeps customers safe with its state-of-the-art testing processes.
Why is Lab Testing Cannabis So Important?
Lab testing cannabis products is critical for growers, processors, and brands. It allows them to increase quality standards and build consumer confidence. Testing also ensures compliance with federal and state laws and ensures products are safe to ingest.
Compliance: Most states with regulated medical and adult-use cannabis programs require testing THC levels in flower and related products to verify potency before growers and manufacturers can sell them. Hemp-derived products, such as those featuring CBD, Delta-8, and HHC, are only federally compliant if they contain less than 0.3% Delta 9 THC by dry weight, per Farm Bill guidelines. Testing THC levels ensures the total Delta-9 THC concentration doesn’t exceed 0.3% and that the formula is free from harmful chemicals.
Customer safety: Lab testing cannabis often and correctly is the only way to ensure products are free of chemicals and contaminants that pose dangerous threats to human health, including residual solvents, pesticides, heavy metals, and microbial impurities like mold and bacteria. These compounds can enter the plant as it grows, during processing and manufacturing, or through packaging. At high concentrations, they can cause respiratory problems, brain damage, and toxicity. Learn more about how ACS keeps your products.
Accurate labeling: Testing cannabis products ensures that the product’s contents match the label, providing consumers with critical information about potency, ingredients, and usage. Accredited laboratories always validate the results in an official report called a Certificate of Analysis (COA) that consumers can review.
What Does Lab Testing Cannabis Entail?
Lab testing cannabis examines all aspects of the plant and its final products. It encompasses many testing options, including full panels, shelf life, and stability and plant health tests.
Full-panel tests:
Full panel tests analyze plant and product safety, potency, and purity.
ACS Laboratory’s cannabis potency tests quantifies THC, CBD, and up to 30 cannabinoids using highly accurate high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipment for compliance and precise dosage information.
Safety and purity tests look for the presence of harmful contaminants, including pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, and mycotoxins. The results indicate whether these toxins are detectable and under the safe allowable limits.
Shelf life and stability tests:
Shelf life tests are vital for establishing expiration dates and providing consumers with reliable information on product durability. They can also help manufacturers optimize packaging and storage conditions. Shelf life and stability testing is especially important for beverages and edibles most susceptible to pH imbalances and inconsistent dosing.
Plant health tests:
Plant health tests are essential because the warm, humid growing conditions for cannabis and hemp crops are also hospitable environments for natural contaminants that can be harmful to humans. Early testing for moisture content and water activity verifies plant health and looks for signs of dangerous bacteria. A full Plant Health Panel encompasses multiple tests for viruses, mycotoxins, pesticides, fungi, and other microorganisms.
What Products Does Lab Testing Cover?
Cannabis testing services include full panels for every product, from plants to finished goods. Along with full panels, product-specific tests such as plant health, homogeneity, residual solvents, and shelf life ensure products meet industry and compliance standards.
Plant tests
- Pre-harvest plant
- Biomass
- Cured flower
The cannabis plant is a bio-accumulator, meaning it easily takes in pesticides, heavy metals, and other toxins from the air and soil. As a result, lab testing plants looks closely cross-contamination, which refers to the presence of harmful organisms that can be transported from one source to another through a carrier, such as soil or equipment. This contamination can occur early in the pre-harvest stage through harvest and post-production and destroy an entire yield.
Edibles
- Gummies
- Cookies and baked goods
- Chocolates
- Candies
Edibles are especially prone to inconsistent THC levels, which can lead to dosage problems, potentially causing adverse effects in people sensitive to THC. ACS Laboratory always recommends homogeneity testing because it safeguards against these issues, verifying that every bite or serving contains a consistent and predictable amount of THC.
Extracts
- Concentrates
- Tinctures
- Oils
- Shatter and wax
Many cannabis and hemp-derived products involve extracting cannabinoids from the plant using solvents like butane and ethanol. Residual solvent testing ensures dangerous chemicals that can cause respiratory and neurological problems aren’t left over from the extraction process.
Beverages
- Drinks, such as soda, coffee, and energy drinks
- Nano cannabis emulsions
Cannabis beverage testing for safety and stability is especially vital because water-based drinks are highly susceptible to bacteria growth and pH imbalances. Specialized tests ensure that these products maintain their integrity, potency, and safety throughout their shelf life.
Packaging
Many brands bypass testing cannabis packaging before going to market because it isn’t subject to the same compliance rules as flower and finished goods. However, packaging is a prime area where impurities can pass through safety screening and reach consumers, such as rolling papers that frequently contain heavy metals or droppers with elevated lead levels due to contaminated ink.
Vapes
Vape cartridges sometimes use harmful chemicals like vitamin E acetate to dilute or thicken the THC or CBD substance. ACS Laboratory’s Vitamin E Acetate testing ensures vape products are 100% free of this cheap thinning agent that can be dangerous to lung function when heated and inhaled
Topicals
Topical cannabidiol (CBD) products are popular for pain treatment and general skin care. Yet, studies show they pose risks for THC contamination, as well as pesticides and contaminants that could be dangerous through contact with the skin, which lab testing can detect.
Comprehensive Results with ACS Accurate Lab Testing
Lab testing cannabis products with ACS Laboratory guarantees precise and comprehensive results for growers, processors, and manufacturers. ACS Laboratory’s testing techniques and processes are of the highest caliber in the industry, and its safety panels often exceed state compliance standards.
Brands and consumers can expect reliable, next-level results with ACS Laboratory that include:
Medical-grade equipment: ACS Laboratory utilizes sophisticated equipment to provide valuable information about cannabis and hemp products and screen for contaminants. The scientific community considers this equipment the gold standard in cannabis testing for its accuracy, including:
- High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to quantify cannabinoid content and potency
- Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS) to detect harmful contaminants at the lowest concentrations
- Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to detect residual solvents at trace levels
Award-winning testing: ACS Laboratory holds 82 total proficiency testing badges for accurate and reliable results from the Emerald Scientific Inter-Laboratory Comparison proficiency test, the most of any laboratory in the United States. ACS Laboratory received Emerald Badges for accuracy in potency testing and detecting harmful contaminants in oils, chocolates, and flower.
Going beyond compliance standards: State and federal laws mainly focus on THC and CBD content, the most prominent active ingredients in cannabis and hemp. However, ACS Laboratory offers testing that exceeds the basic requirements.
- ACS Laboratory’s cannabis potency tests quantify up to 30 cannabinoids that contribute to the plant’s psychoactive and wellness properties.
- ACS Laboratory is one of the only laboratories nationwide to offer HHC and THCO-specific safety bundles, scanning for residual acids and metals that could remain in post-production products.
- ACS offers flavonoid and terpene profiling, which third-party testing often overlooks. These vital compounds can modulate the effects of cannabinoids, significantly impacting a product’s overall efficacy and experience.
The Bottom Line
Lab testing cannabis is necessary for all product types to keep consumers safe from harmful contaminants and unwanted side effects. ACS Laboratory leads the nation in cannabis testing services, offering over 30 safety, quality, and R&D tests to ensure safe, quality products that consumers can trust.
Brands looking to meet safety and quality standards can contact ACS Laboratory today about lab testing options for cannabis flower, finished products, and packaging that exceed compliance standards.
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