Massachusetts health regulators temporarily closed two medical marijuana dispensaries after a test came up positive for a pesticide.
The dispensaries – which are owned by Healthy Pharms and are located in Cambridge and Georgetown – notified state officials of the test results and were then told they would have to cease retail sales “until further notice,” The Boston Globe reported.
Healthy Pharms said none of the contaminated cannabis was sold to patients, and the company’s attorney told the Globe that no marijuana plants were sprayed with bifenthrin.
According to the attorney, a room at the cultivation facility became contaminated after employees used an off-the-shelf product to sanitize the room before moving plants back in.
Some of the company’s plants then became contaminated with residual amounts of the pesticide, the attorney said.
“This is the department following the regulations to a T, and Healthy Pharms is doing their best to go along with that,” the attorney told the Globe.
Massachusetts MMJ companies have been under intense scrutiny by state regulators for years.
Business can expect new markets, fresh opportunities - and more pitfalls.
This is exactly the reason tracking behavioral data through a standards based quality program is so important. These things wouldn’t happen in the first place-neither would the associated brand damage, the legal fees, or the lost revenue.
This suck, but there are preventative and remediation tactics available to these folks. It would be great to have our friends in the industry from Massachusetts tap into the experience of our trials and tribulations in Colorado. I’m happy to jump on a call to discuss, but this is fixable, but obviously an expensive lesson that many entities have learned here in Denver.
Sounds like someone trying to shut down the legal marijuana business in Massachusetts
Meanwhile food is rarely tested at all.