How Health Canada changed its mind on pesticide testing in the marijuana industry
In the early days of Canada's federally regulated marijuana industry, just as Ottawa was drawing up the rules for the new sector, Health Canada allowed the companies selling the product to make a crucial decision regarding consumer health and safety.
Rather than implement strict requirements that each company screen its products for illegal pesticides, in order to show the government and consumers that they were free of potentially dangerous chemicals, the health regulator let the industry decide for itself.
Not long after, several of those companies who produced medical marijuana – the same industry that will supply cannabis to the recreational market once it becomes legal this summer – decided pesticide testing wasn't necessary. So they simply elected not to do it.
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Read more: Marijuana companies caught using banned pesticides to face fines up to $1-million
It was 2014, the industry was on its way to becoming a multibillion-dollar business, and there was no one to tell them they had to test. Health Canada revealed that fact in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail this spring, exposing a gaping loophole in the industry's safety regulations.
"As testing for pesticides was not a regulatory requirement, licensed producers took the business decision to stop this testing," Health Canada said.
The business decision was that screening marijuana for illegal pesticides cost money, so why not save those costs? The ramifications from that decision have had a profound impact on the industry, and on medical marijuana patients, in the past year. And it has raised questions about Health Canada's oversight of the sector as the government prepares to legalize the product for recreational use in 2018.
In the past year, several instances of banned chemical use have emerged in the industry, prompting recalls of products that manufacturers had said were clean. Five companies have been found with plants or products containing illegal pesticides, or banned chemicals related to pesticide use. This has prompted concerns, and anger, among consumers, particularly those who say they got sick after consuming government-licensed medical cannabis.
As the government tries to move marijuana sales from the back alley to the legal market, the contaminant problem has also raised alarms with laboratories that test consumer products for purity. Wendy Riggs, manager at M.B. Laboratories Ltd. in Sidney, B.C., a federally accredited facility, said commercial enterprises should not have been left in charge of their own health and safety screening protocols, particularly when selling pain-relief medicine to people with conditions such as late-stage cancer and other diseases.
"It is morally and ethically unconscionable to be using banned pesticides," Ms. Riggs said. "You have a very serious breach of trust with the Canadian people by allowing pesticide in a medicine stream to people who already have compromised immune systems."
Story continues below advertisement
After a series of revelations by The Globe and Mail over the past year, which demonstrated that the pesticide issues within the regulated marijuana industry were deeper than the government realized, Health Canada reversed that decision. In May, the regulator announced it would implement mandatory pesticide testing for all companies in the industry, to ensure the products weren't contaminated.
And in December, Health Canada revealed to The Globe that it was introducing fines of up to $1-million per violation for any company caught breaking the rules in the future.
But those two key regulatory changes did not come easily. On numerous occasions, Health Canada told The Globe that none of these steps were necessary, and that the problems were under control.
It took months, and a mounting body of evidence, for Health Canada to finally change its mind.
In the fall of 2016, Health Canada told The Globe it had no plans to introduce pesticide testing, even as reports were emerging from the United States that such problems were a reality for the cannabis sector, and regulators there were growing concerned about public safety.
In Colorado, Oregon and Washington, where cannabis is legal for recreational or medical use, regulators were finding potentially dangerous chemicals turning up in products all over those states – a sign that some commercial growers were struggling to produce crops at mass scale, and to deal with infestations of mites and mildew that often come with large, indoor operations. Adding banned chemicals was a shortcut to saving a crop that was potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Story continues below advertisement
But in Canada, the regulator assumed companies could look out for themselves. The industry knew such chemicals were banned, and therefore would not be using them, the government reasoned. "We have not required licensed producers [LPs] to test for unauthorized pesticides, nor have we been testing all LPs, and it is because we expect the companies to be proactively watching and taking the appropriate measures to ensure non-authorized products aren't used," a senior Health Canada official told The Globe.
If the illegal use of pesticides such as myclobutanil and bifenazate – which are banned for use on cannabis due to potential health dangers, and have raised serious concerns in the U.S. – were to be discovered here, Health Canada said it would not hesitate to punish those companies. If necessary, it would even revoke their operating licence, the regulator said.
But as it turned out, some companies weren't as compliant as Health Canada believed. Last December, Mettrum Ltd. announced a large recall of its products, but did not reveal in press releases that the recall was due to illegal pesticides. The chemicals were only mentioned in passing during lengthy automated phone messages left for customers. It was not until The Globe and Mail called the company's customer service line, asking if myclobutanil was contained in the recalled products, that the company and Health Canada publicly acknowledged that it was true.
Other than these short phone messages to Mettrum customers – which implied the pesticides were of minimal risk to consume – there is no evidence that Health Canada or the company ever intended to reveal the reason for the recall to the broader public, leaving some consumers without access to important information.
A few days later, a press release issued late in the day from Organigram Inc. revealed that it too had been caught with banned pesticides in its products. In both cases, the chemicals were discovered almost by accident.
Mettrum's problem came to light when the regulator happened to be screening the products for another source of contamination. Organigram's situation was uncovered when rival Aurora Cannabis Inc. struck a deal for a bulk purchase from the company. Aurora resold the product to its own customers, and also sent some of the bulk order for testing at a lab. When the results came back, they showed signs of two banned pesticides, prompting Aurora to recall the product it had already shipped to consumers.
Organigram and Mettrum also issued mass recalls, and said they had no idea how their products came in contact with banned pesticides. But a former employee of Mettrum, Thomas McConville, told The Globe he had witnessed myclobutanil being applied to the plants at that company's operation, and that the bottles were hidden in the ceiling tiles of the office when Health Canada inspectors visited the site.
Mr. McConville also provided e-mails to document that the matter had been discussed internally with the company's executives. Health Canada confirmed it had been told of the problem, but said it left the matter up to the company to investigate itself. The company found no problems.
But even with these examples of harmful pesticides showing up in regulated medical marijuana, Health Canada insisted mandatory testing wasn't necessary.
Mettrum and Organigram were slapped with individual requirements to test all products going forward, but no formal rules were created for the rest of the industry. On Feb. 7, the regulator told The Globe it would only go as far as random testing – which it said would be enough to detect any problems, and to fully protect consumers.
In the early days of Canada's federally regulated marijuana industry, just as Ottawa was drawing up the rules for the new sector, Health Canada allowed the companies selling the product to make a crucial decision regarding consumer health and safety.
Rather than implement strict requirements that each company screen its products for illegal pesticides, in order to show the government and consumers that they were free of potentially dangerous chemicals, the health regulator let the industry decide for itself.
Not long after, several of those companies who produced medical marijuana – the same industry that will supply cannabis to the recreational market once it becomes legal this summer – decided pesticide testing wasn't necessary. So they simply elected not to do it.
Story continues below advertisement
Read more: Marijuana companies caught using banned pesticides to face fines up to $1-million
It was 2014, the industry was on its way to becoming a multibillion-dollar business, and there was no one to tell them they had to test. Health Canada revealed that fact in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail this spring, exposing a gaping loophole in the industry's safety regulations.
"As testing for pesticides was not a regulatory requirement, licensed producers took the business decision to stop this testing," Health Canada said.
The business decision was that screening marijuana for illegal pesticides cost money, so why not save those costs? The ramifications from that decision have had a profound impact on the industry, and on medical marijuana patients, in the past year. And it has raised questions about Health Canada's oversight of the sector as the government prepares to legalize the product for recreational use in 2018.
In the past year, several instances of banned chemical use have emerged in the industry, prompting recalls of products that manufacturers had said were clean. Five companies have been found with plants or products containing illegal pesticides, or banned chemicals related to pesticide use. This has prompted concerns, and anger, among consumers, particularly those who say they got sick after consuming government-licensed medical cannabis.
As the government tries to move marijuana sales from the back alley to the legal market, the contaminant problem has also raised alarms with laboratories that test consumer products for purity. Wendy Riggs, manager at M.B. Laboratories Ltd. in Sidney, B.C., a federally accredited facility, said commercial enterprises should not have been left in charge of their own health and safety screening protocols, particularly when selling pain-relief medicine to people with conditions such as late-stage cancer and other diseases.
"It is morally and ethically unconscionable to be using banned pesticides," Ms. Riggs said. "You have a very serious breach of trust with the Canadian people by allowing pesticide in a medicine stream to people who already have compromised immune systems."
Story continues below advertisement
After a series of revelations by The Globe and Mail over the past year, which demonstrated that the pesticide issues within the regulated marijuana industry were deeper than the government realized, Health Canada reversed that decision. In May, the regulator announced it would implement mandatory pesticide testing for all companies in the industry, to ensure the products weren't contaminated.
And in December, Health Canada revealed to The Globe that it was introducing fines of up to $1-million per violation for any company caught breaking the rules in the future.
But those two key regulatory changes did not come easily. On numerous occasions, Health Canada told The Globe that none of these steps were necessary, and that the problems were under control.
It took months, and a mounting body of evidence, for Health Canada to finally change its mind.
In the fall of 2016, Health Canada told The Globe it had no plans to introduce pesticide testing, even as reports were emerging from the United States that such problems were a reality for the cannabis sector, and regulators there were growing concerned about public safety.
In Colorado, Oregon and Washington, where cannabis is legal for recreational or medical use, regulators were finding potentially dangerous chemicals turning up in products all over those states – a sign that some commercial growers were struggling to produce crops at mass scale, and to deal with infestations of mites and mildew that often come with large, indoor operations. Adding banned chemicals was a shortcut to saving a crop that was potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Story continues below advertisement
But in Canada, the regulator assumed companies could look out for themselves. The industry knew such chemicals were banned, and therefore would not be using them, the government reasoned. "We have not required licensed producers [LPs] to test for unauthorized pesticides, nor have we been testing all LPs, and it is because we expect the companies to be proactively watching and taking the appropriate measures to ensure non-authorized products aren't used," a senior Health Canada official told The Globe.
If the illegal use of pesticides such as myclobutanil and bifenazate – which are banned for use on cannabis due to potential health dangers, and have raised serious concerns in the U.S. – were to be discovered here, Health Canada said it would not hesitate to punish those companies. If necessary, it would even revoke their operating licence, the regulator said.
But as it turned out, some companies weren't as compliant as Health Canada believed. Last December, Mettrum Ltd. announced a large recall of its products, but did not reveal in press releases that the recall was due to illegal pesticides. The chemicals were only mentioned in passing during lengthy automated phone messages left for customers. It was not until The Globe and Mail called the company's customer service line, asking if myclobutanil was contained in the recalled products, that the company and Health Canada publicly acknowledged that it was true.
Other than these short phone messages to Mettrum customers – which implied the pesticides were of minimal risk to consume – there is no evidence that Health Canada or the company ever intended to reveal the reason for the recall to the broader public, leaving some consumers without access to important information.
A few days later, a press release issued late in the day from Organigram Inc. revealed that it too had been caught with banned pesticides in its products. In both cases, the chemicals were discovered almost by accident.
Mettrum's problem came to light when the regulator happened to be screening the products for another source of contamination. Organigram's situation was uncovered when rival Aurora Cannabis Inc. struck a deal for a bulk purchase from the company. Aurora resold the product to its own customers, and also sent some of the bulk order for testing at a lab. When the results came back, they showed signs of two banned pesticides, prompting Aurora to recall the product it had already shipped to consumers.
Organigram and Mettrum also issued mass recalls, and said they had no idea how their products came in contact with banned pesticides. But a former employee of Mettrum, Thomas McConville, told The Globe he had witnessed myclobutanil being applied to the plants at that company's operation, and that the bottles were hidden in the ceiling tiles of the office when Health Canada inspectors visited the site.
Mr. McConville also provided e-mails to document that the matter had been discussed internally with the company's executives. Health Canada confirmed it had been told of the problem, but said it left the matter up to the company to investigate itself. The company found no problems.
But even with these examples of harmful pesticides showing up in regulated medical marijuana, Health Canada insisted mandatory testing wasn't necessary.
Mettrum and Organigram were slapped with individual requirements to test all products going forward, but no formal rules were created for the rest of the industry. On Feb. 7, the regulator told The Globe it would only go as far as random testing – which it said would be enough to detect any problems, and to fully protect consumers.
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