What is lab testing and why is it important to you?
Highlights:
- All legal cannabis products are lab-tested before sale, ensuring purity of product by checking for mould, mildew, pesticides, and other chemicals.
- Health Canada requires licensed producers to label products with total THC and CBD content as a percentage of dried cannabis by weight.
- All legal cannabis products are safely lab-tested before sale, ensuring that they are free of mould, mildew and pesticides.
One of the benefits of legalizing adult-use cannabis in Canada is that it provides consumers with the assurance of a safe product. Before a licensed producer is permitted to sell a product, it must first be lab-tested.
The independent testing of all legal cannabis products before sale ensures purity by checking for mould, mildew, pesticides, and other chemicals.
Licensed producers are required to test each lot or batch of cannabis in up to four different areas. All cannabis intended to be sold in its dried form, or processed into an oil or capsule, must be tested for a selection of microbial and chemical contaminants, which are outlined in Canada’s Food and Drugs Act.
THC and CBD levels
As per the Cannabis Act, licensed producers are required to lab-test their products for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), and display the amounts by volume on all product labels. This eliminates the guessing game, because you will know exactly how much of each cannabinoid are in each product. Having this information allows you to make informed decisions based on potential potency and cannabinoid content, as different cannabis products vary in their strength and composition.
Orally administered products (oils and capsules) must meet requirements of a dissolution or disintegration test, a measure of quality that is used to predict how a drug might perform once it enters the body, to ensure that its performance is consistent. These products must also be tested for residual solvents used in the process of producing cannabis oil.
While testing for terpenes is not required by Health Canada, some producers include this helpful information in product descriptions.