Douglas A. Duncan

Research scientists in the cannabis field are tasked with validating robust methods that can be seamlessly transitioned into production laboratories. Unlike typical disciplines where controls are easily (and legally) obtained through known manufacturers, analytical chemists working for both consumable vendors as well as cannabis laboratories must do their best to develop methods often without such resources at their disposal. As the industry matures and additional regulations are adopted, the evolution of the pesticide testing subsection continues to be vastly different depending on the jurisdiction one does business in. This creates an interesting challenge for commercial scientists tasked with developing methods that will appeal to a majority of their consumers, while also generating unexpected hurdles to said laboratories once the methods are placed into production. Ace Analytical Laboratory, located in Las Vegas, Nevada, has successfully adopted and validated pesticide testing methods for their cannabis laboratories and has gained valuable insight into how to best work with such a difficult matrix. In conjunction with UCT, LLC, an overview of best practices and method development techniques for pesticide testing in cannabis is discussed below and told from a technical perspective.