British Columbia Government Urges Cannabis Consumers to Use Legal Market

The British Columbia, Canada government is urging cannabis consumers to purchase legal cannabis after finding contaminants in confiscated unregulated cannabis, Marijuana Business Daily reports. The issues were detected when the province’s legalization and regulation secretariat ordered the testing of dried flower seized from illegal dispensaries in Vancouver.

According to the report, legal cannabis sales in Vancouver are the lowest in Canada.

Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth told reporters last week that “the samples went to a federally licensed lab for testing, and the results are concerning.”

Farnworth indicated the tests found 24 distinct pesticides and “unacceptable levels of bacteria, fungi or heavy metals.” The testing was part of a pilot program by the BC Centre for Disease Control and the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (NCCEH). Just three samples of the 24 samples would have been acceptable for the legal Canadian market and only two of those had no detectable pesticide residues.

Farnworth said many consumers think the cannabis found in the illegal dispensaries is grown in organic clean environments. “The reality is, what we’re finding— it’s not, he said in the report.

“And the best way to avoid that is to shop at a legal retail store, where people are abiding by the rules, the product is tested, they pay the proper licensing fee, they’ve invested money into the business legally.”—Farnworth via Marijuana Business Daily

He encouraged consumers to avoid the illicit market and shop at legal cannabis stores.