Currently in Canada, there are 72 authorized laboratories that are licensed to conduct analytical testing for cannabis and cannabis product. Regulated under The Cannabis Act & Regulations, these labs have been instrumental in providing cannabis companies and consumers alike the analytics needed to guarantee the safety and satisfaction of their marijuana. Health Canada has mandated many quality assurance measures for cannabis producers in this country, such as strict adherence to Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s), full-disclosure of cannabis inventory tracking as well as limitations on the chemical composition of their cannabis or the substances used to cultivate said cannabis. Although most cannabis laboratories in Canada are primarily for commercial testing (i.e. products meant for the retail market), there are some labs that can provide analytical testing for those flowers and derived products from personal cultivation. Costs can vary greatly, but nonetheless if you want to know with the utmost certainty what is the terpene, cannabinoid, nutrient or chemical profiles of your buds then these teams of licensed testers can help.
Over the years, many cannabis growers – both commercial and personal – have lamented over the lack of “at home” testing options for cannabis. It is difficult to have access to, or even have the know how, to properly test your cannabis at home and this is doubly so for home-testing kits that have been on the market for years. There are many options for testing at home, usually limited to THC/CBD concentration, but many cannabis consumers need to know or want to understand more about their plants. What you put into your plants reflects what you’ll get out of them (or find residing in them), so it can be essential for medical patients or people who rely on a certain grade of cannabis to receive up-to-date, accurate information about their marijuana.
All these mentions, and we haven’t even touched on the extremely important factor of genetics. Strain validity, including potency of THC & CBD, terpenes and genetic variances are some of the most prominent hot-button issues when it comes to analytical testing. Is a strain you recently purchased, be it flowers or even seeds, exactly what was advertised? Are there any ways to guarantee/test genetics? What, if any, benchmarks are there for cannabis cultivators to compare/test their strains for validity? These are just a few of the pressing questions facing commercial cultivators and cannabis consumers, and it’s imperative that we establish a foundation for answering these quandaries soon. Today, moreso than ever, a certain strain of cannabis’ ability to self promote through its potency (perceived vs actual), popularity (word of mouth) and pricing can be the difference between success and failure. With so many marketing/promotional restrictions on cannabis, being able to put your ‘marijuana where your mouth is’ and prove your strain is what you say it is, can do what you claim it can, and comes from a definable legacy of genetics is sometimes the best way to generate demand for your cannabis products.
How can you prove the validity of your strains, when strain names seem to change with the seasons?! We understand your trepidation when it comes to keeping up with strain names in the ongoing “strain wars” that afflict the modern cannabis market. Sometimes it seems like one cultivator comes up with a new strain, and the retailers or cannabis media go and change it before you’re even had a chance to try it. Like most things in life, consistency is the name of the game when it comes to proving the quality of your buds; with each consistent batch/crop, a cannabis strain will build credibility and as the testing supports the consistency of their terpenes, cannabinoids and biochemical composition the strain will grow (no pun intended) in popularity. Trust, when it comes to genetics, is a long-term process and it can often fall to you (the cannabis consumer) to act as the final check-and-balance for a strain’s claims on potency, plant-family or value.