Marijuana quality testing going mainstream

(TNS)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cannabis used to be what moonshine is to alcohol, its content as murky as a cloud of smoke lingering over a Phish concert.

Now a cadre of Bay Area laboratories can tell you exactly what you're getting for your money — creating reliability, safety and standardization in a business that long relied on the casual assurances of a skanky friend from Stonerville.

Gone are the days of being ripped off with a nickel bag of dusty oregano. Or eating a cookie that delivers manic euphoria, when all you wanted was to ease a little nausea.

"We are providing quantifiable data on the safety and quality of the medicine," said Santa Cruz-based organic chemist Josh Wurzer, co-founder and lab director of SC Labs, which tests 8,000 samples a month, from Humboldt and Tahoe to inner city Los Angeles.

"Our integrity is critical," said Wurzer, a blonde and clean-cut Midwesterner. "It's all we have. If our numbers aren't reliable, then what is there?"

This new generation of science geeks — with backgrounds from places like Samsung, Kraft Foods, the University of Southern California and Cisco — stand at the nexus of growers, medical dispensaries and consumers, issuing certificates of analysis for commercial medical marijuana in an increasingly pot-friendly state.

And if the campaign to legalize marijuana in California in 2016 succeeds, as expected, their role in this multibillion-dollar market will expand.

In this modern-day gold rush, they play the assayer who inspected the precious mineral and stamped each bar with weight, serial number, fineness and value.

Here's the catch: Their role is completely unofficial. Unlike food and drink, most medicinal cannabis can be sold in California without any testing. And their techniques and protocols vary.

But there is growing recognition that tests — ranging in price from $120 to $250 — can help legitimize the drug, protect patients, promote sales and improve breeding programs.

"Look at your sambuca, peanut butter or ibuprofen — there's a label telling you what's in it. When you buy cannabis, you have no idea," said Los Altos Hills-based Randall Kruep, formerly of Cisco and now CEO of Sage Analytics, which just unveiled a new test device.

For instance, testing reveals why the "Sour Diesel" strain is so popular at parties: While it's low in therapeutic cannabidiol, it's high (24.05 percent average in posted SC Labs test) in psychoactive THC and packed (20.1 milligrams per gram) with terpene hydrocarbons — especially limonene, beloved for its citrus fragrance.

It also explains why "Cannatonic" is preferred for children with epilepsy. Lower in THC (3.73 percent), it is high (12.56 percent) in seizure-reducing cannabidiol, with an earthy, pine-scented smell.

Legally, these labs navigate tricky waters. Although the state allows medical marijuana, the federal government still classifies it as a prohibited Schedule 1 drug — so they're testing something they're not allowed to have. (They've put their faith in more permissive local authorities.)

Cannabis testing started years ago in what Wurzer calls "jokester labs," with untrained people running unreliable equipment in the back of VW vans.

Now labs compete on the sophistication of their analyses, using tools such as gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, petri film and plate counts and polymerase chain reaction for genetic analysis.

They also strive harder for customer service, through special courier services, Web-linked 2D bar codes, colorful websites, links to popular apps like WeedMaps.com and competitive pricing.

Innovative new niche tests are emerging, as well, offering greater speed and convenience.

In his grand house atop Los Altos Hills, Sage Analytics founder Kruep demonstrated his "Luminary Profiler," a desktop cannabis measurement device, made in Fremont, that enables quick, cost-effective potency and freshness testing.

Commonly used by pharmaceutical laboratories, spectroscopy produces accurate results, but it has been too expensive and complicated for the cannabis market. His tool is small, portable and easy-to-use — perfect for harvesters, dispensaries and the baking of cannabis-infused pastries.

On his dining room table, he gently rests a golden bud of "Girl Scout Cookies" on the device, covers it with a black cap, flicks on a light and — presto! — a digital reading of THC content appears: 26.3 percent.

"Boom — done. Four seconds," crows Kruep, an entrepreneur who also helped launch Redback Networks, Stoke and other tech companies.

"There is no reason," he said, "that we can't give people a profile of their cannabis the same as we provide information about food, drink and medications — a label that says, 'Here is what you're about to consume.'"

In Oakland, microbiologist Robert Martin cofounded CW Analytical Laboratories after three decades at Kraft Foods and research and development at Dreyer's Ice Cream.

His six-person team specializes in microbiological safety, especially in cannabis-based foods — screening for mold, bacteria, fungus and other contamination that results from poor handling, lousy hygiene, improper storage and dirty instruments.

"I'm 63 — an old guy — who's smoked pot my whole life, but started seeing friends get seriously sick," said Martin, who grew up in Huntsville, Ala. "They asked me about the quality of cannabis, and I didn't know.

"Now, it's improved. I am really pleased with how much cleaner products are. Growers changed," he said. "It's a direct response to quality assurance being brought into an industry, raising awareness."

SC Labs' Wurzer, 36, got his start synthesizing small molecules for pharmaceutical companies, then made silicon polymers for Samsung. But he enjoyed growing marijuana and yearned to work with safer chemicals, so he started SC Labs with three friends, $120,000 and maxed-out credit cards.

With a focus on high-end analytics, one of their tests can detect one-trillionth of a gram of DNA for cannabis sex determination and strain verification.. "There is a connoisseur market of consumers who really know their compounds and know what they like," he said.

The company tested 300 to 400 samples in its first few months, and the owners didn't take a paycheck for three years. Now it has 32 employees and labs in Santa Cruz and Santa Ana that test 8,000 samples a month, with volume doubling annually. This month they'll open a lab in Seattle, where recreational pot is legal.

"We're small startups with big dreams," he said. "It's exciting, like being at IBM in the '80s."

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©2015 San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

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