Glass House to challenge California’s recall of its marijuana products

Glass House Brands, a major vertically integrated California marijuana company, says it plans to challenge the state’s recent recall of some products that allegedly contained mold.

The state’s Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) issued a mandatory recall for Glass House-branded Garlic Starship pre-rolls that went on sale after April 30 “due to the presence of Aspergillus flavus.”

But Glass House co-founder Graham Farrar told the Cannabis Business Times “we will appeal” the recall.

Unanswered recall questions

Glass House has unanswered questions about how the state found problems with the product, which the Long Beach-based company says tested clean.

“I don’t know how they tested it. I don’t know who tested it. I don’t know what tests they did on it,” Farrar told the Cannabis Business Times.

The DCC provided “no information” about the circumstances that prompted the recall, he added.

“Without knowing that, I can’t even say if this was actually a viable aspergillus (spore) or just a remnant of a dead speck of dust, basically, that happened to match the DNA pattern,” he told the Ohio-based publication.

A DCC spokesperson told the Cannabis Business Times the agency could not comment because the situation is an active investigation.

2024 recalls prompting questions

The allegedly offending pre-rolls were sold at 15 marijuana stores across the state before the recall, according to regulators.

The state appears to be ramping up marijuana product recalls amid intensifying questions about the integrity of testing labs.

However, according to a recent MJBizDaily analysis, recalls in the industry are also often too slow to capture product before they’re sold.

Most product are sold 60 days after reaching store shelves, meaning an August recall for a product stocked in April is unlikely to have much practical effect.

According to the Cannabis Business Times, among Farrar’s unanswered questions are:

• Did the pre-rolls come from a distributor or a retailer?
• What prompted the state’s review of a product cleared for sale?
• What lab conducted the testing, and what were its findings?