FDA rules takes the top 5” of kola for hemp tests

Wisconsin is now using the FDA guidelines for testing hemp- they take the top Five (5!) inches of kola from 27 plants of each variety planted-

Planted 100? They take 27
Planted 27?
They take 27.

This seems asswards, and a practice that damages the farmers livelihood and ups probability of unnessescary crop failure- i see no net benefit for the state to utilize these practices in their testing when the thc limit of .3 is so low already.

Could one not spray a saturated terp mix heavy in limonene on a thc heavy field, ensuring to saturate the top 5” of said kolas and lower total cannabinoids to safe levels?

The fact that the target area of the plant to be collected for testing is so specific, seems like an easy route for justifiably frustrated farmers to sabotage the process

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Pretty sure they want hemp grown as textiles only.

According to birdsong that’s the deal anyhow. Birds are sometimes idiots, so who knows.

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Do it for every 10 plants they need to take 5 inches of a top cola off it, or 5 inches of plant material in total or grams of material in total. Whatever floats their scroat.

27 plants is ridiculous. We do need some better testing though, I think 1 plant every 10 plants is good, so you have 100 plants they take 5 inches off 10 plants, or a certain weight. Not just a top cola too, lowers and mids. Make it uniform.

Wisconsin always been a bit asswards for hemp and cannabis

Hey.

The usda and fda rules do not say 27 plants.

It says to use standard AQL 95% confidence interval sampling based on the number of acres planted, with what appears like a one per acre sample.

The rules allow for taking from a single plant if you are under an acre. These are the rules we commented on last year and were published in January after public comments closed.

The fda is never as specific as this post implies they point to cross industry standards and allow interpretation.

We made a lot of other comments to make this process easier for growers of all sizes, it seemed like a big deal to me and I see it is a big deal to you as well.

Is Wisconsin pointing to the standard or interpreting the standard in their own and having their own set of rules? I’ve been dealing with this all over the country and I’m happy to reach out and get them aligned with the ASTM standard for this.

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I wonder if a grafted plant would pass the cola test. Fiber strain up top, dank thc strain below. I dont know if thc is mobile within the plant, or if a grafted plant maintains two separate cannabinoid profiles.

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I was told that wisconsin is using the FDA rules, apparently i was told wrong, by a state employee

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Bro state employee responses are gold if in writing.

Plausible mistakes

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Sounds very similar to the Oregon hemp testing laws… 6 inches from about 30 plants. But if you want to get that total thc low… Test early as possible and dot in some cbg strains.

That and CBD and CBG and CBC.

Right, what I meant was reclassification. People have been talking about altering the wording and standards for what’s what. So, this law sounds alot like a step in that direction.

Drug plants vs fiber plants.

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“by a state employee” … well at least you’re dealing with the best and brightest

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It wouldn’t surprise if we’ll see a pretty drastic overhaul of the Farm Bill in the not too distant future as a backlash or pendulum-swing to all the unintended cannabinoid conversion taking place. But it would surprise if they revoked the ability to isolate the three naturally occurring “hemp” cannabinoids.

No, d8-THC isn’t one of them. Maybe, you may get discretionary approval to make semi-synthetic CBN, even if d8/d9 were intermediates.

Level of scrutiny will go up, no doubt. Local Fire Marshals will become much more vigilant and strict. The buck stops with them.

It will become harder to do chemistry in general. The door that was cracked open partly in response to improprieties by companies such as Purdue Pharma now risk getting nailed shut.

A great opportunity squandered, sowed and reaped.

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Definitely forgot the italics here :rofl:

My Wisconsin crop was harvested at 27 top 5” of top cola for each of two seed strains. There are minor modifications based upon the number of plants, but that’s the gist of it. My inspector stated that these are USDA based metrics, and represent an increase in the quantity of plant material tested over previous years, which were top 2” of top cola. Wisconsin completes its last year operating its own state program on December 31, 2021. With 2022 we transition to direct management under USDA.

Also, FDA doesn’t oversee the hemp agriculture program. It’s administered by USDA. That’s why it gets funky when we shift from agriculture and farm commodity (USDA) to cosmetic / food / supplement (FDA) when the materials move through different stages of growing and processing. It’s also how we find ourselves with laws authored by politicians, lawyers and special interest / investor groups that lack a boots-on-the-ground grasp of application of the relevant regulations, as follows:

  1. The unreasonable potency of .3% THC dry weight plant matter when basing it on cola (nowhere does the law instruct the regulating agency to test the most cannabinoid concentrated fraction of the plant, and we ought be arguing for a more reasonable interpretation that flowers be gathered from all branches), plus the figure itself has a shoddy, non-scientific basis.

  2. The failure to apply basic concentration math, recognizing that crude extract and distillate will be necessarily be progressively more concentrated with cannabinoids, obviously, and this does not magically morph the material into legal MJ when the legal definition has been accomplished according to dry weight plant matter;

  3. Legal MJ cannot be remediated to “become” hemp according to legal definitions, so the entire system falls apart if we apply the .3% THC figure to concentrated in-process extracts and designate them non-compliant / MJ, and then further process to reduce the THC percent based upon the premise that it subsequently becomes hemp once again.

  4. The failure to recognize that falsely applying the hemp identity metric of .3% dry weight plant matter to finished product rather absurdly allows very high absolute quantities of THC, given a larger serving size. Math, again.

Current USDA, FDA and DEA interpretations of law are all severely skewed, and it’s literally impossible to be compliant~ which is also why agencies are failing to guide and failing to enforce.

Lack of rational, do/able regulation language, along with abysmal lack of regulatory guidance and standards, followed by commensurate lack of enforcement ~ is precisely why catastrophic safety compliance events can happen. Of course, we honor the principle of personal responsibility, but regulatory body foot-dragging on the entire subject of hemp is arguably the most significant factor in the loss of life that occurred on October 19, 2021.

What are we going to do about this mess? It’s time. Evidently, it’s up to us to take the bull by the horns.

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Yes, literally impossible to grow a CBD strain to full maturation and have the cola test under 0.3% total THCs dry weight. Someone writing this stuff knows that damn well.

Now you could make a pooled sample and hope the amount of fan leaf or CBG cola dilutes the sample down… but that is not a good gamble for the farmer and it is really not keeping anyone safe from “the evils of weed”. I am stunned by the dumb in these USDA laws and everybody betting their savings on this.

Folks, keep your money in some crop that is legal or you stand a good chance of loosing your shirts.

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The USDA rules were changed to over 0.3% this past summer.

We are doing this work. Writing the comments, working to make the language more scientific, the new rules do not appear to say anything about taking things from colas. It just says from influrecence which is any of the flowering parts.

I just voted on the definitions to the standards and made sure the definition of influrecence included all the flowering buts including the mids and bottoms, not just top colas.

Closer every day to better rules, that are standardized across the states.

Some states have really stepped up their game on getting out clear rules like Michigan, california, and colorado.

The whole downstream processing bit continues to be terrible. It comes up at every single regulatory work group I go to.

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