LANSING, MI — Michigan marijuana regulators are passing on a chance to increase consumer transparency.

For years, a segment of the marijuana industry has asked for more information, specifically the ability for consumers to determine if marijuana they buy failed safety testing or has undergone a decontamination process known as “remediation.”

The Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) has so far balked at forced labeling.

Michigan marijuana goes through a litany of testing before being crammed into pipes or rolling papers. Labs look for excessive yeast, mold, fungi, pesticides, metals and other contaminates. The results carry both health and quality implications largely kept secret from customers.

A change proposed by the CRA would allow producers to include a statement that: “This product has not been treated with radiation, gas, radio frequency, chemical, or thermal processing,” but would not require companies that use those methods to reveal it.

Critics say the CRA’s proposed rule doesn’t do enough.

“I think the industry just wants to keep their head down about remediation,” said retired attorney Matthew Abel, who founded the Cannabis Counsel marijuana firm in Detroit. “They don’t really want the customers to know and understand that so much of this product is remediated, and the new rule doesn’t do anything to protect consumers – at least very little.”

WHAT IS REMEDIATION?

While Michigan doesn’t publicize safety testing results, labs and national studies indicate as high as 30% of marijuana initially fails testing, usually for excessive mold or mildew. Hardly any lands in the dumpster.

That’s because it’s remediated, eventually passes safety testing and is sold to unwitting consumers who don’t know the backstory.

Often, remediation is conducted using radiation or ozone treatments that kill living organisms, but also may impair quality. Dead mold and any toxic byproducts they create are left behind.

The remediation processes are considered safe and aren’t easily observed by users.

“A large majority of our food supply undergoes this exact same treatment on a regular basis,” said David Egerton, laboratory manager at Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs in Jackson. “Every strawberry anyone ever buys gets treated with gamma radiation.

“If we are saying it’s safe for our food, which, obviously the FDA does, then I would say it’s perfectly fine for cannabis as well.”

Labs are able to tell if marijuana has been remediated because results reveal zero mold, even though it’s ever-present in the environment, Egerton said.

However, it’s not living mold but the potentially lingering byproducts that can cause the greatest health risks, the greatest of which is posed by mycotoxins, compounds created during the life cycles of certain mold.

The CRA requires testing for mycotoxins only when marijuana fails for the presence of aspergillus, one of the strains known to produce it.

Labs won’t look for mycotoxins if they test after aspergillus is already dead.

PREEMPTIVE DECONTAMINATION

Rather than incur the risk of potentially expensive retesting, a growing number of producers are pre-remediating marijuana before it makes it to a testing lab.

“All you have to do is pretreat it prior to testing,” said Caleb Eversole, who has worked with licensed marijuana growers over the last five years. “You could have a significant amount of residual mold in the flower that’s still visible and still containing mycotoxins” but “test negative because there’s no living mold spores or bacteria.

“And from what I’ve seen, a majority of cultivators in the state are utilizing pretreatment or remediation options to create sellable flour.”

Eversole said that’s largely due to the high cost of growing clean marijuana.

“Each room has to have it’s own HVAC system that gets maintained and it gets expensive,” he said. Marijuana prices “are so low that the people who are hanging on … have no option but to remediate to stay in business.”

Because of the glut of marijuana, Eversole believes remediation labeling would benefit quality facilities and discourage massive growers that pre-remediate.

CERTIFICATE OF ANALYSIS

Currently, the only way a consumer can learn if marijuana they buy has previously failed testing is to request a document called a certificate of analysis (COA).

The COA is a standardized form produced by labs that includes results and indicates if they are the result of a retest. A retest indicates the marijuana likely failed initial testing. But the COA doesn’t include information regarding the type of remediation applied.

“And unfortunately I have heard of instances where people have requested the COAs and various provisioning centers have come up with excuses as to why they can’t produce them,” Egerton said. “But they should really be able to provide the COA to any customer who asks.”

While the CRA has not acknowledged why it hasn’t imposed requirements for remediation or failed-test labeling, many believe pushback by major industry players is a factor.

MLive made multiple requests for comment from Robin Schneider, director of the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group representing hundreds of cannabis companies. She didn’t respond.

“It’s almost like how GMO labeling is fought by large farms and (corporations) because they said it would be like putting a skull and crossbones (on the label),” Eversole said. ”Putting that your flower has been remediated on the packaging would be a detriment to everybody who’s using that practice.”

CONFLICTING VIEWS

CRA spokesman David Harns said the proposed rules in which remediation and failed-test labeling is not required “reflect many months of conversations with stakeholders – including licensees and consumers – who oftentimes had conflicting, deeply-held views on treated marijuana.”

“The CRA is attempting to better protect the health of consumers and ensure they have the information necessary to make informed decisions without causing significant disruption to the operations of an already struggling Michigan cannabis industry,” Harns said. “The CRA received hundreds of comments during the recent public comment period, some of which pertained to the topic of treated marijuana.

“We will spend the next several weeks reviewing those comments to determine whether any additional changes should be made.”

Attorney Mike Komorn, who’s represented numerous marijuana businesses, can’t see a valid argument against giving consumers more information.

“Who in their right mind would want to ingest cannabis that wouldn’t have passed testing but for microwaving it,” Komorn said. “Especially since the market is so oversaturated, there should be ways to identify the quality (marijuana) that’s not been remediated, but we don’t have that.

“If we don’t know that, then the remediated garbage that they turned passable, barely, gets top-shelf treatment.”