Oklahoma’s Medical Marijuana Working Group reached consensus Wednesday on some potential testing requirements.
That will include extending the deadline for labs to achieve accreditation and not starting the clock on them until six months after rules are adopted.
"Making sure that the language is very clear that laboratories will be given up to 24 months that they can operate under a provisional accreditation so that we can have testing up and going as soon as humanly possible in the state of Oklahoma," said Sen. Greg McCortney, a working group co-chair.
Lawmakers on the working group said untested medical marijuana products could be required to carry warning labels as a way to encourage producers to get testing done in the meantime.
Lawmakers agreed on limiting testing for heavy metals only to those that are necessary. The working group's other co-chair, Rep. Jon Echols, said cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury are probably enough.
"It’s very important to test for heavy metals that are present in Oklahoma soil to make sure they’re not in there in a manner that’s harmful, but we don’t need to test for uranium," Echols said. "That’s not an issue here, where it is in, say, California."
Lawmakers may take allowable levels for those metals from rules the health department drafted in July. Ultimately, those rules were not approved, and the approved version does not tackle laboratory testing.
Lawmakers will also recommend testing be done for every 10 pounds of a product. McCortney and Rep. Steve Kouplen made clear, however, the working group is only making recommendations at this point.
"We can send anything we want as a recommendation. The board of health has the power here," McCortney said.
"So, anything short of a special session where statutorily we send it to them, there’s no guarantee that they would implement it?" Kouplen said.
"Correct," McCortney said.
