Starting Oct. 1, new products headed to marijuana dispensary shelves will have to undergo a battery of tests that assess potency and look for biological contaminants such as E. coli, residual solvents from the extraction process used to make oil, and dozens of pesticides.
The policy shift transforms Oregon's marijuana labs from an unregulated cottage industry into a central part of the state's regulated market. Yet while hundreds of prospective marijuana producers have flooded the Oregon Liquor Control Commission with applications for licenses, only eight testing labs have applied so far. None has received a license yet.
That trickle of applications worries state officials who hope to license at least three labs by late summer. Without enough labs to test a large volume of samples, growers risk not getting their products tested and onto the market.
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