Marijuana Businesses Push Back on New Oregon Testing Rules

Some makers of marijuana concentrates, extracts and edibles are sounding dire alarms about how the state's new testing rules are holding back their products from the market and jeopardizing their businesses.

They complain that the state lacks approved labs to carry out all of the required tests, causing long delays, forcing them to mull layoffs and generally leaving them out of the state's new recreational marijuana program that opened this month.

The state has 18 accredited and approved labs for marijuana; only four are approved to test for pesticides, a hallmark of Oregon's marijuana regulation.

"There is a fundamental failure going on here," said attorney Amy Margolis, executive director of the Oregon Cannabis Association, a trade group. "I am getting countdown clocks from clients saying, 'This is how many days I have until I have to shut down.'"

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