The full text of Gobi Analytical’s statement released to The Cannabist:
Gobi Analytical advocates and supports legal marijuana use and is proud to be a part of a growing industry that raises millions of dollars in tax revenue and employs thousands of people across the state of Colorado.
We developed the pesticide testing side of our business specifically to help growers and manufacturers get reliable test results back in a week rather than have their products tied up and quarantined for six months or more while waiting to receive results from the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Our pesticide testing lab uses liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (or LC/MS/MS). It is the most widely used technique to detect and quantify pesticides in plant and food products. This technique is the standard method for determining pesticide residues in the United States and Europe.
Gobi Analytical determines the content of five pesticides in cannabis plants, concentrates and infused edibles using LC/MS/MS equipped with electrospray ionization (ESI) in positive ion mode after sample extraction and clean up based on QuEChERS methodology, following European EN 15662 standard procedures. Identification of each pesticide is based on the retention time of each compound and the product mass generated using single reaction monitoring (SRM), and quantitation is determined using external standard calibration. This pesticide testing methodology employed by Gobi Analytical is the most widely used pesticide-testing methodology in the world today and is considered the best possible way to test for pesticides.
We don’t want to see anyone in the industry have their product recalled or quarantined — especially an industry leader like EdiPure that employs hard-working Coloradans and has invested heavily in the growing marijuana industry.
Colorado growers and manufacturers are in a very tough spot with marijuana being illegal federally and having none of the most widely used pesticides and fungicides being labeled as approved for use on marijuana.
Consumer safety comes first, but we also support marijuana grown with pesticides and fungicides used in a responsible and ethical manner. For instance, food that we buy every day in supermarkets abides by EPA and FDA standards, which regulate safe use of pesticides by monitoring that products test within a set allowable threshold in the parts per million range.
We will continue to work together with growers, manufacturers and state and local agencies to come up with a universally acceptable limit for pesticides on marijuana. We look forward to getting past the pesticide issue and helping the industry grow and thrive.
