A June 23, 2015, editorial piece appearing in the on-line version of Forbes discusses the results of a recent study showing that active chemicals in edible Cannabis products can vary from 1% to 155% the amount listed on the product label. The study, conducted by researchers from John Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania, raises concerns about the use of edible Cannabis products as medicine (Wide Variability In Potency Plagues Medical Marijuana Edibles, JAMA Study).

 

In the study, researchers recruited physician-authorized buyers to purchase a total of 75 edible Cannabis products from medicinal Cannabis dispensaries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. These samples were sent to an analytical laboratory that analyzed the concentration of the medically important cannabinoids tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol (CBD) present in each sample. The researchers compared the laboratory results with the cannabinoid concentrations listed on the product labels and discovered that only 17 percent of the products contained the labeled amount of THC. They also discovered that nearly one in four products (23 percent) contained more THC than what was listed on the label while 60 percent of the products had less THC than the label listing. 

 

The editorial comments that the findings of the study were in agreement with the findings from a similar experiment conducted by journalists at the The Denver Post. In this experiment, the journalists purchased 13 edible Cannabis products labeled as containing 100 milligrams of THC and had them analyzed by a laboratory in Denver. The results of this experiment found that some of the products contained as little as 0.2 to 5 milligrams of THC.

 

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