Why does the cannabis industry need to get better at measuring heavy metals

Why does the cannabis industry need to get better at measuring heavy metals
The cannabis plant is known to be a hyper-accumulator of heavy metals in the soil and growing medium, so it’s critical to monitor levels to ensure cannabis products are safe to use. Unfortunately, there are many inconsistencies with heavy metal limits due to the lack of clear and common regulations. Most define four heavy metals (Lead, Arsenic, Cadmium, Mercury) while others specify up to nine. Some are based on limits directly in the cannabis plant, while others are based on human consumption per day. Others take into consideration the bodyweight of the consumer, while some other do not even have heavy metal limits. Some regulations only refer to heavy metals in the cannabis plant/flower, while some give different limits for the delivery method such as oral, inhalation, or transdermal. It was these regulatory inconsistencies, which undeline how this was a topic that urgently needed to be addressed.
The inexperience and lack of knowledge of many of the testing labs that had sprung up in the past few years is also a crucial factor, because the industry was growing at such an alarming and chaotic pace.

At Milestone, we feel that this was a great opportunity to make a difference and help the industry, so over the next few months we developed a complete range of documentation related to cannabis sample preparation, which led to the pptimization of ICP-MS for measuring heavy metals in cannabis, for the testing labs in the area that didn’t have a good understanding of working with the technique.


Learn More about Heavy Metal Testing in Cannabis