State program accrediting water, pot labs faces ‘collapse’

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 6, 2016

State accreditation for laboratories essential to meeting new marijuana-testing requirements and for testing for lead in drinking water may face major delays because the Oregon Health Authority has failed to fully staff the program, according to a memo by the program’s administrator.

“We are on the precipice of collapse of environmental, drinking water, and cannabis accreditation because of the lack of resources and the last minute rush of cannabis labs with applications,” Gary Ward, administrator of the Oregon Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, wrote in an Aug. 26 email to the health authority and other interested parties.

In June, no labs had submitted applications for cannabis testing accreditation. Since then, the number of applications for varying types of testing has ballooned to 37, according to the health authority.

The delays could stall the supply of legal marijuana available to the public and postpone accreditation for 17 labs that test drinking water.

Only accredited and licensed labs are allowed to test cannabis products sold on the legal market, according to the health authority. Starting Oct. 1, cannabis products must be tested for a new checklist pesticides and other contaminants.

“The public health will be in jeopardy from potential drinking water problems and contaminated cannabis,” Ward writes in his email.

Ward indicated he requested at least three additional full-time employees to help with lab accreditation but has received none from the health authority. The health authority issued a statement Tuesday outlining how it plans to address the staffing shortage but did not explain why it had not hired additional staff members to date.

Health authority spokesman Jonathan Modie says the agency is “developing staffing solutions” to address the increased demand for cannabis testing labs. One of the strategies will be to review the accreditation program’s customers from across the nation and prioritize accreditation in Oregon.

The self-funded, fee-based accreditation program now has three staff members and one temporary position, the memo states. The health authority also provides some support by lending staff members to help the program establish testing standards and aligning those standards with the program’s rules and regulations, Modie said.

Changes in the rules for cannabis testing and lab accreditation have contributed to the backlog, Ward says. Many labs waited until July to apply for their accreditation until the state finalized rules for new testing requirements.

“We are going to have to audit these cannabis labs two to three more times in the next eight months to get them up to par for accurate cannabis analyses and to ensure complete compliance,” Ward writes.

Ward was not immediately available Tuesday to provide further details on his requests to the health authority.

Richard Reid of Pixis Labs said state cannabis regulators may have to push back the Oct. 1 testing deadline so that producers can continue to sell product while more labs are accredited. Pixis Labs already was scheduled for its final accreditation audits and won’t be affected by the program’s staffing shortage.