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Signal Bay’s EVIO Labs Provides Insight to California’s Proposed Testing Rules
Signal Bay’s EVIO Labs Provides Insight to California’s Proposed Testing Rules.
About this update from Evio, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n BEND, OR , May 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Signal Bay, Inc. (OTCQB:SGBY) parent company of EVIO Labs, a leading provider of analytical testing services to the legal cannabis industry, provides insight to the proposed marijuana testing rules released on April 28th by the California Bureau of Marijuana Control.  EVIO Labs reports that the proposed testing requirements are far more stringent than the already existing testing requirements in Oregon, where EVIO operates four analytical testing labs.  The rules will offer new protections for California’s medical cannabis patients, and validates the market opportunity for EVIO Labs as it opens testing facilities across the state. \n The proposed rules require that every batch of cannabis that will be sold through licensed retailers be tested for potency, pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents and microbiological impurities such as molds, Salmonella, E.Coli and mycotoxins. All of this testing will be expensive.   Today, California growers are spending $50 - $80 for individual tests such as potency, mold, pesticide and residual solvent to ensure clean cannabis is being sold.  The proposed rules will implement batch testing, similar to other states like Colorado, Nevada, Massachusetts and Oregon, where every 10 pounds of dry flower is tested, but the new rules propose every batch of product be tested twice.  Furthermore, product manufacturers will have to ensure each batch of edibles be tested ten times for potency to ensure the batch is homogeneous. According to the Bureau of Marijuana Control, the proposed regulations are expected to increase the cost of medical cannabis by $407 a pound.  This can mean over $4,000 in testing revenue per ten pound batch of marijuana flower. EVIO Labs has reviewed these requirements through the lens of its Oregon experience.  Most of the pesticides that are required to be detected must be detected at levels far lower than is required in Oregon.  This means that analytical testing companies, such as EVIO Labs, will need to increase their capital investment in the top of the line testing equipment that will be required to detect contaminants at these levels.   This may also make it difficult for smaller less capitalized labs to operate with these new proposed regulatory requirements....