Last week we broke the news that popular vape cartridge producer Ionic failed a random pesticide test conducted by Uncle Ike’s. Their Dutch Treat cartridge failed for having more than the legal limits of myclobutanil, which is a common fungicide deemed safe for consumption yet can be dangerous when heated.
Ionic’s CEO issued a statement saying the initial issue was an isolated incident that was under investigation. Due to being a mixed batch, they were unsure who was guilty of selling them tainted flower. Today’s results show that myclobutanil was also found in two completely different products from their brand. Their Northen lights product had over 4x the legal limit of the pesticide. The Ionic website says the company is 100% organic and both pesticide and chemical free. These tests have found this message harder to upload with the state’s lax approach to pesticide testing regulations. Since the initial incident days ago, the company has updated their brand standards and will test all incoming and outgoing product.
The Seattle cannabis store’s Ike’s Ok program spends their own money to randomly test five products direct from their shelves for pesticides, heavy metal, and microbial testing. If a product fails, that entire skew is immediately pulled from the sales floor and another strain from the company is tested. If that test fails, all products from the said vendor are removed from the shelf and will be forced to provide clean testing results for all products for up to the next 6 months on their own dollar.
While cannabis remains at its current federal drug classification, we will likely not see government assistance with cannabis testing. This, of course, leaves consumer safety up to people like Uncle Ike’s that are willing to spend the extra dollar to educate the willing.
UPDATE
Ionic has concluded their investigation as to the source of the raw material (cannabis flower) for this batch of oil came from. As the brand is a processor and does not grow marijuana, they only process plants grown by other businesses. According to their findings, ‘OG Farms’ is named as the grower using myclobutanil above the Washing State mandated traceable level. The company has immediately removed products and implemented standardized testing for all material on site.
Ionic turned a disappointing story towards the light by shining light on the bigger issue here, which is failed regulations on the industry as a whole. They want to make known that growers and other companies in this state are not up to par and they haven’t needed to be. They’ve also pledged to now test every batch they run and publish the results publicly as well.
“Since we are not a Producer; we have been adversely affected by insufficient regulations at the state level and irresponsible and illegal practices by a single grower. It is an outrage that non-compliant materials can be pushed into the supply chain. Let every Producer be put on notice that moving forward we are testing every batch that leaves our facility, and those results will be viewable to the public, both inside and outside of our community.”
Read their full statement here.
OG Farms Responds
Ionic has yet to provide evidence of where the material came from and blame has shifted from one farm to another. Both farms have steadfastly responded that they do NOT use the pesticide found. This also brings up the issue that the vape cartridges were incorrectly labeled by farm and possibly strain. If Ionic is unable to provide proof of source, we can only hope the LCB is able to leverage their multi-million dollar traceability platform to find the grower and hold both Ionic and the original source accountable for this mishap.
More updates to follow.
