I don’t mean to be a puny pun pest because this is a subject that is serious and certainly demands attention from many different facets of the issue.

A product on a shelf that is 95 percent Cannabidiolic Acid (CBDa) raises the concern of what is in the other 5 percent. Most recently, there have been articles in press stating that, in some, there is a high level of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides.

This is NOT true of ALL products. There are many products that are toxin free.

Not surprisingly, these compounds have been shown to be toxic to humans above certain amounts. There are states that have passed laws on the use of cannabis for medical and adult use that have regulations on the types used and the allowable levels of pesticides and aflatoxins. In California, pesticides are not allowed.

Extraction is basically preferential concentration of compounds from the plant. No matter the actual mode, e.g., using cold ethanol, cold water, steam, dry ice, hydrocarbons or sub or super critical carbon dioxide as well as smoking, they all concentrate the active ingredients and the pesticides. None of them excludes the all the pesticides or the aflatoxins. In fact it is the opposite; they concentrate them.

Ingesting these in cannabis in the raw form was studied by Sullivan, Elzinga and Raber, in a peer reviewed paper, Determination of Pesticide Residues in Cannabis Smoke. As a pulmonary intake method, the pesticides are also ingested along with the cannabinoids, terpenes and other compounds. Please note that smoking is a form of extraction so they are concentrated in pulmonary intake.

Certainly there are books that discuss how to grow cannabis with appropriate means. The balancing of conditions is critical. Certainly sources like Ed Rosenthal’s numerous books and articles, as well as Dr. David Potter’s dissertation, outline the complexity of the growing botanical plants.

So simply stated, if you begin with one kilogram (1,000 grams) of cannabis that has 12 percent by weight of CBDa, then you would expect to get 120 grams of CBDa from the process. However, when you get to the final step and the subsequent small losses along the way, you might have 120 grams of 95 percent CBDa. What is in the 5 percent? If there were 0.1 percent pesticide residue in the initial product, then you could have as much as 1 percent.

This bugs me — pesticides can kill? Can we ignore the basics of chemistry, physics and math when it comes to medical marijuana by some people?  –  NOT ALL people, thankfully.

In my experience, the influx of scientists entering the application space understand the process and the dangers of ignoring them as well as not trusting what people tell them.They are well versed in the business and regulations in the botanical base nutritional supplements, as outlined in the newest FDA guidance.

They are advocates of self-regulation for consumer safety. They advocate the thought of “certificate of analysis” that producers would present to confirm that their products are toxin free and have a statistically valid proof of active ingredients. The Elements of Statistical Learning reads “In God we trust; all others bring data.”