One to the eighth cannabinoid science workgroup. Really excited for you to be here. And for us to have a really great conversation. Just as a little bit of preview, before we jump into our discussion topics, we're going to quickly review the minutes and get those approved for the one that we had in December. And that was sent out to you a couple of months ago. So I just wanted to make sure there was nothing that anybody had seen from those minutes that they that they wanted to bring up in today's minutes. Okay, great. And then for today, I wanted to briefly have a start discussing two topics. So the first topic is talking about high THC. Is there a way to create a definition of high THC and justify that definition of high THC? And then the second topic is cannabis product stability across time. And obviously, these two topics are very complex. Oh, we have Ryan coming in. Here, Ryan, thanks for thanks for coming today. The second topic? Yeah, so So both of these topics are very broad. And obviously, we're not going to have enough time in this hour to really create a very solid understanding of either of these topics. But really, it's to start having those initial discussions of of your thought process, and then what might be the best steps moving forward. So any any questions before we move on to the first the first topic discussion? So I'm just going to briefly overview, each topic discussion just in case anybody who is listening to this after the recording has a context and just for us to get all on the same page. So high THC has been receiving a lot of increased attention recently across various stakeholders, public health professionals, researchers, regulators, both within Washington and across the United States. And the primary point of discussion is associated that higher THC is associated with greater risks relative to lower THC. And this is particularly when we're talking about people who are at risk. So like people who have, you know, developing brains, youth, young adults, adolescents, those with underlying health problems, like people who have a family history with psychosis, or who have mental or physical health problems as well. And yet, this topic is very, and there's also research looking at medical, medical and therapeutic effects of higher versus lower THC. This topic is super nuanced, though, because depending on how you look at whatever it is that you're looking at, whether it's differences in THC concentrations, route of administration, how many, how frequently you're using, there can be a lot of variations, and what is determining high higher versus lower THC. And across hundreds of studies, and this study actually looked at over 450 studies that examined higher versus lower THC, and they found that there was so much variability on the methodology of high versus low THC. And so in order for us to guide further exploration of this topic guide, whether there are policy options or where research needs to focus in on it's really important to figure out what it is that we're referring to when we say high THC, if that's possible. So with that being said, these are the discussion questions that were sent to your emails. And I kind of want to start out with just a very broad question of given your background and expertise. Do you think that creating a definition of high THC is feasible?
Yes, Jessica, I would say I think one of the biggest issues I hear a lot is we have to be very careful when we create these definitions that we're not enabling a system where dilution leads to larger health issues. You know, kind of the vape gate situations where people are diluting products to meet certain categories. So, you know, one of one of the things when you say, is it feasible? Is it feasible for somebody to just put a number of stake in the ground? It probably is, but is that the best for safety? I think that's one of the biggest questions in my mind is, how do we enable people access to, to safe products? And without creating more safety hurdles? If that, if that makes sense?
Can you talk a little bit more about diluting? Like, what what you mean by that, and how that might impact? Public safety or health? Yeah,
you know, so for example, if you were to say, hey, anything, and I'm just gonna make up a number, I know that there's different numbers, but let's say that you were to say, hey, anything over 50% concentration is, you know, high THC and banned or something like that, I think you would open up a system by which they carts and things would still exist. But the question is, is how would what other dilutents would people put in those to meet that threshold? And so I would just say that that's, you know, we know in general, concentrated floral material is, from an inhalation perspective, relatively safe. We we know that when you put, you know, vitamin E acetate and different things in vape carts, that is not safe. There's a lot in between that. And when I say safe, I'm not talking about, you know, studies about long term effects or anything like that. I'm talking about immediate inhalation effects. And so my concern is, is that we really, you know, is there mechanisms that we approach this via tax or different mechanisms that don't put people into situations that they're creating products that may have larger health issues than the ones that we're trying to tackle? Does that make sense?
That does, yeah, thank you, Jessica. Sara.
So what if we, I mean, I feel like defining high THC. Like what if we defined it as instead of like a number, but rather, we could define it like as a as like a what people are using, like a like an oil wax or something like that is a high THC, as opposed to like a flower, which would be a low, a lower THC, or something like that, because when I'm working with patients, I feel like I tried to steer them away from concentrates because drinking hard liquor is worse for you than having one beer if, if you don't know how to regulate those sorts of things. And so like, I could, like having it be more or less of a number and more of like a substance based thing, I could steer people toward a lower concentration to try first rather than like a higher concentration without saying, well go for the 15% over the 30. Because I feel like we should avoid like labeling THC. People come into the shop, and they're like, I want the one that's gonna get me high. And I want to like, as a health care person, I want to try to help people not just go for the one that's gonna get them high, but the one that's going to help them the most. And maybe something like that would would be a better way to define it. I know less about how things are made and more about how people are consuming them. But if we could do it in a substance based way, rather than like a number, maybe that would be helpful.
Yeah, sir. I think you bring up a really good point. And when looking at how people have previously defined high THC originally, it was kind of based on those product differentiations of like the the concentrates are the ones that are higher high THC products. And I think there's also a further discussion within what you're saying is, if you know theoretically, you have the same amount of THC in one product versus another product, flower versus concentrates would there be differences in like, Risk and Safety profiles as well? And I'll So really appreciate your point of guiding legal users to what is going to give them the the most the safest and most pleasurable and avoiding kind of risks associated with that. Taylor?
Yes, um, couple of things on it, I think, from my perspective, because like in my research, I mean, Grant, it's mice, but I use it, those are 25 milligrams per kilogram, which would be comparable to 2000 milligrams injected. And again, study the effects on the immune system. So for me, my definition of high THC doesn't even fit within this realm, because I'm looking at it basically, from a, you know, the toxicology standpoint outside of the immune function. So taking it back to humans, I almost view it as like a high THC would be per serving? Because I think the question is, if the goal of it is to have an actual health impact, what is the audience that you're targeting? Meaning? Is it people that are not conscious of what they're buying to know how much they should consume? Because if you're looking at it from like, a health perspective, a lot of things potentially considered high THC don't necessarily have a physiological harmful impact, theoretically, outside of you know, if there's pesticides or anything like that, but the actual, if we're just calling it high THC, that THC dose is probably not going to have a physiological harmful effect necessarily. So I really liked the idea of THC per serving, because then it's kind of letting people know if it's high THC per serving, say like one puff of a vapor, you know, edible or anything like that. It's kind of letting them know that this is a stronger product, and potentially keeping them from the, you know, the mental side effects that would come along with a high THC dose, if that's really like the target audience. But yeah, I mean, I guess for me, a high THC dose is much higher than then, you know, what most people would consider?
You like when you're saying THC per serving? Can you go a little bit more into depth about what what you mean by that?
Sure. So there's a lot of papers that have come out in the last two years that have measured potentially like using a, we have devices as well, that can kind of mirror a breath, like like breathing. And it can measure how much THC is being consumed per vape puff, they've actually done, there's a study that was using different voltage vape pens. And they found that most of the vape pens they tested were between nine and 16 milligrams of THC per puff. You could also consider I mean, I'm guessing you could use the same machine and measure per leaf, how much THC is being consumed. Because the thing to keep in mind here is if you're looking at health, the more of a product you have to consume, you're going to end up getting more of the byproducts. And that one paper you sent in the email the second paper, they noted that when the users were using concentrates, they took half the number of puffs, and they were allowed to consume as much as they wanted. And there's another study they referenced in their discussion that they saw the same thing during the study when they were allowed to smoke as much as they want that people consumed half the amount of a concentrate. And although you're not feeling the THC right away, there are receptors like TRPV, one and other receptors in your lung, that basically can signal that you've consumed a lot of a product. So there may be some sort of tie in where just because something tired THC, the body may be like, Oh, okay, I'm okay, this this dosage. So there's kind of this evidence is starting to emerge as they're doing more of these consumption studies, that a higher THC product may result in less usage just natively, even in an open use experiment where they can consume as much as they want. So that's kind of a highlight of the opposite side of the coin, where it's like maybe some of these products don't necessarily result in a worse outcome. If the user is aware of what's going on, which goes back to the serving, someone may not know what's going on, go into a store and buy a concentrated but if the little bottle said, you know, 50 servings are within this, maybe that person would be conscious and be like, Oh, I'm not supposed to consume half of this product in one sitting.
Thanks, Taylor. Ryan.
Yeah, those are really great points. And I think this, you know, we're identifying this is a really super complex issue, particularly because of, you know, we're just initially starting to talk about smoking versus vaping. And sort of trying to distinguish between that but you know, what we're really talking about from, you know, increasing a health standpoint for users edibles is the one that induces the most emergency room visits and is most likely to induce overdose and that has really very little to do with how much THC, Well, I mean, it is how much THC but it's their inability to self titrate, like was just mentioned before is like, if you're using high concentrate products, you're allowed you're the pharmacokinetics enable you to self titrate in a way that is much safer in many ways than edibles. And so I don't know, I mean, in some ways, I think part of it is not just the THC, but like what Jessica says, like, what you're mixing or diluting all of these concentrates with that really need to be heavily regulated. I don't see THC to be necessarily always the bad guy. But, you know, it certainly can be. Anyway, that's all my point.
So, and, Brad, I'm gonna get to you in a second, I'm curious about with the studies on titration. From my understanding, people tend to titrate and there are other studies that showcase that even when people titrate with higher concentrated products, they have more like concentration and blood levels. Any thoughts or about that specifically?
I mean, I'm very close with my wife, Dr. Cutler does research and has worked with high THC products using a zoom approach. And you might be citing some of her work when you're looking at some of this stuff, actually. And so they although she doesn't hasn't measured THC quantity, or concentrations, per se, from the different methods of use, she doesn't see any greater cognitive impairing effects from people that are using concentrates versus flower, it doesn't seem to really support that, at least at that level from a behavioral or cognitive perspective.
Thank you, Ryan. Breath. Thank you, Sara,
I'm going to echo a bit of what Taylor had to say. And suggesting that it may be more feasible and perhaps effective to divine high THC in terms of the amount of THC consumed or used over a period of time, rather than by defining it based on the product that THC is in.
So when you're thinking about high THC consumed over a period of time, are you really speaking to providing guidelines based on you know, with research to support it, but based on you know, your level of risk increases based on if you're using X, Y or Z amounts during the day or throughout the week, kind of like what we have with, with like, standard drinks of alcohol with like five plus drinks for binge drinking for males per night. Is that what you're what you're saying, Brad?
That's exactly what I'm thinking that's sort of the heavy use terminology used in in alcohol models. I think that that's more instructive to folks that are looking to minimize the risk. Thank you.
Brian, did you have your hand up?
No, I forgot to take it down from the last time. Sorry.
Well, it's kind of weird because sometimes when I raise my hand teams will lower it for me. And then other times it won't I don't know if other people have that. I see something in the chat. Sarah, I tend to steer a while actually Sarah, would you mind sharing what you wrote?
Sure. So um, as we're discussing so when I have older folks that come in and they're having pain and then they want they were asking me like you know, I went to the store and I didn't know what to buy I I steer them actually towards the edibles that the gummy ones in particular because they tend to cap their THC at 20 milligrams per edible. And I'm like, you know, cut it in half if you want but that way, if they take it at night and they wake up and they're dizzy, then they know like then they know that more is not any going to be good for them. And so because that's kind of a problem with the older like the boomer population that wants to relieve pain and they don't really want to smoke it they don't really know what to do and so the the the ad of the gummy edible is kind of an easy way for me to give them a start and so I like what people are saying where maybe like the the the alcohol has different concentrations when people are buying it and so they you know, Washington labels are alcohol like you know, if you drink, here's your limit and if you drink this much and you go over this limit, then it's bad. So maybe we could do something like that instead, like on a package, like Taylor was saying, you know, this is this many servings per package. If you take half the package, you're going to be pretty drunk or whatever, like, as opposed to having one serving. And that seems to make sense to me. And like a, you know, layperson, like I went to the store, and I didn't know what to buy.
Sally. Thank you, Jessica.
I agree, Sarah, and I and Brandon, what people are saying, and I think the one thing that kind of gets lost to some degree is concentrates aren't necessarily like a new thing. We know people have kept this plant for hundreds, if not 1000s of years. So we do know that that there are certain ways that people have consumed this plant and not seen some of the issues that that may be occurring now. And so I do think like education, may be a good path, and, and understanding how much of something that people should consume and not necessarily potentially the, the format that it's being delivered in, as Ryan mentioned.
So speaking to that point, and Taylor, you mentioned this in your email. To me. Alcohol is pretty standard, because it's all liquid, but with cannabis, all of the different methods and even, you know, one, someone's path differs from another person's path based on a variety of factors. So how, like, what, I guess when I'm thinking about it, that just seems very complicated to be able to determine or say like, this is one serving, when there are so many differences edible, it feels a little bit, a little bit easier to standardize, but what about for smoking or, or vaping?
So I think, again, it would come down to kind of those studies that use the simulated breathing device, and then measurement, which again, are out there. And it kind of goes into that question of like, what levels are people willing to go into to kind of like, push through some of these, I guess, policies, that would kind of be the way stuff would have to be tested, basically, to see what the dosage would be or relative, I mean, it's kind of tough, you wouldn't be able to test every product that way. But over time, there could be some some sort of equation that summarizes it pretty well, based on the viscosity of the liquid, based on THC content, you can kind of determine what the average puff would be. It is tough. I mean, again, that's where this gets so complex is how would that be calculated. And obviously, within any of this stuff, anytime you come up with an you know, an equation or anything, people are going to figure out a way to get around it.
So it is really tough. But again, going back to the alcohol thing, it's like ALC percent solution is completely different than a dry weight percent. That's how like in South Carolina, some of the stores here get away with selling very high THC product, because based on the HIPAA law can be point 3%. But that in solution is much higher than dry weight. So it's tough. But again, I think if you can figure out a way to to calculate the per serving than it answers the question moving forward, it's just getting to that initial point would be, you know, the difficulty.
And we currently don't really have a correct me if I'm wrong, but do we have? Do we have a method of determining the serving size right now.
So I did a project on this at the clinic that I work at, and I took my pinky finger and said, so the top of my pinky finger is about 100 100 milligrams of flower. And three of those four times a day is like a ceiling limit for, for a dose is what I is because when people are smoking more than that, in my experience, they're not really getting any effect after that as much as they're getting like side effects more than anything, but like that's totally unverified and I didn't use a tool to measure that. That's just kind of what I've seen in my practice over the years and an inhalation sort of thing. There's a lab test that I can order for patients that it'll give them a number for like their blood concentration of THC, like they can be like 114 or like 12 or something like that. And if there is, I don't know if there's literature out there that provides like a you're impaired after this number, like 300 or something But we could use that. It's like a definition for like an upper level of high THC. Like if you're going to use this product and it puts your blood level over like, you know, an alcohol, it's point 08. If it puts it over that, then we can label that as like high THC, maybe.
Oh, Ryan.
Yeah, I think the problem with that is, you know, we often want to equate blood levels of THC with intoxication or impairment, but it's really it's not blood levels, blood levels actually don't really correlate with cognitive or you know, any sort of impairment, it's brain levels of THC that you really need. So I mean, just because you have a lot, or a relative little revenue, relatively little amount of THC circulating through your body doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be more or less impaired or be more or less at risk of having adverse effects. And I just, I'm worried a little bit about trying to draw too many relationships with alcohol, because I think that cannabis and alcohol are just an entirely separate beast that we can't just say that a concentrate is the same as as you know, drinking, you know, 40%, you know, alcohol, it's just it's very, it's very different, in my opinion, just based on the pharmacokinetics of smoking versus, you know, drinking or eating something.
Thank you, David.
Yeah, Ryan said a lot of what I was going to say kind of figured he would. But just to add to that, briefly, a number of states had had some values on the laws on the books that were based on values of blood levels, most of those had been removed, because they found that they were just not able to demonstrate any kind of action, like Brian said, their correlation to actual impairment function. There's a lot of data that's coming out very recently, that suggests that their liver function is different in every individual liver function has a big impact on longevity of these compounds in the body, and their impact. Individual BMI, or basically how fat you are hate to say it that way. But you know, level of fat within the body has an impact as well. And all of those things come into play, because those are tissues that are affecting the levels of these cannabinoids, their availability, and the ability that they end up in the brain, like mine talked about, those are all very individual, there's nothing like alcohol is a lot. There is individuality there as well. But it's a lot more consistent in these broad categories. The data is that we're getting now some clinical work that is coming out is suggesting exactly what Ryan said that there's really no good correlation there, it's really hard to come up with a number that it's going to work for people. We've got to I don't know what the solution is, though. It's going to take a little bit of time and effort to try to figure out what can we identify as some kind of quantifiable marker something that connects a person's impairment with whatever their consumption levels gonna be. And I think we're gonna have a hard time coming up with a blood test, urine test, or anything like that, data breathalyzer or anything like that, that's people did try to do that for a dozen years. And none of those things actually pan out, you see new stories about it. And they make, you know, they hype it a few universe, there was one of just a few months ago, where somebody claimed they had something again, and it's not going to work out with the I looked at it, it's going to be just like everything else people come up with, it's really not going to lead to something that's really applicable in the field, or even in a clinical setting. So it is a really big problem. And it's I don't know, I don't know what the answer is.
Yeah, I've also seen like the I think, what's, what is the, like the druid that looks at like impairment, but I yeah, I I hear what you're saying. And I I agree, Jessica,
you know, one of the things that I think that's made this really difficult discussion at the legislature level is it appears and even as part of our discussion, it's it's not necessarily the product by design is enabling like everybody to have an issue it just making it easier for certain people to have an issue I think, you know, analogous to like alcohol. You know, a vodka is easier to abuse probably than beer just based on volume, you can consume less, and that there's a lot of kind of educational deficit around the products at a consumer level. So I just I worry that by trying to approach it from like a definition of high THC, we may not be addressing the problem, which is really you know, that certain people We are utilizing these products and having issues with them. And maybe the people having the biggest issues are actually the people that are misusing the products and how do we help an education? And you know, like, like, I'm not saying we don't address any of the product situation, I'm just saying, how do we actually get to this so that we're not creating larger problems, and we're addressing the problem, which is that, you know, certain people are being harmed by utilizing these products, and, and maybe just by misusing the product, so like, how do we address the issue, which may not be just defining what high THC is, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Jessica? Ryan?
Yeah, just really echo what Jessica said, I think those are great points. And just you keep coming back to this idea of education. And I think that that's really, really the most important thing here. It's not necessarily a setting a limit and saying, oh, we can't sell drugs, you know, THC content above a certain level, because that's, you know, I think that's not necessarily even quite grounded in empirical evidence. Yeah, we don't really have the science to back up that even these just having high THC in and of itself, is going to be more deleterious in terms of mental health or cognitive health outcomes. I know, there are certainly some correlational studies that might suggest that or there's some evidence, maybe, but until the science comes out, I just, I don't I always feel like when we're trying to put a cap on things, or we're trying to prevent people from using things, it just creates alternatives for them to go and bypass the regulations. It's like, it's almost like you put something for this, like, you're challenging people to, you know, you know, you know, circumvent the system in some way. And so, in many ways, I just think, you know, we all know that a lot of people are very comfortable with using cannabis these days, it's become a lot more mainstream and a lot less stigmatized. I think just now that we have so many more people using it more people are, you know, experimenting with it, we really need to emphasize just trying to teach people and educate people about what these harms actually are and what we know and what we don't actually know yet, you know, because that's just the law that we don't know. But you know, that's important when we're trying to make legislation, we can't just make legislation based on something that we kind of have a hunch on.
Thank you, Ryan. So we'll go with David, and then Tracy, and then we'll move on to our second topic.
Yeah, real quick, I agree with everything about the education. The concern I have is Yup, we always have to think I guess, like the lowest common denominator is kind of what we have to look at here. A lot of people will become educated, but a lot of people won't get the news. They won't hear about it, especially if you've got children involved. And this is what I mean, this is you hear about the stories where with it's a lot of it's around Delta eight lately, right? Kids that end up in the hospital because they get exposed, they eat a whole package of gummies or something that have 250 milligrams of Delta eight in it. For that was one that just happened heard about this last week. And little kids aren't going to be educated on this. So how do we deal with that? That's something that needs I think that's and that's what people are going to bring up as an issue but no, they. So how do we deal with that that's something that needs to be considered, is coming up with an answer to that.
Thank you, Tracy.
And just real quickly, I think that least from my perspective, the state is a little bit conflicted about what its role is in terms of education. I mean, Washington was the first state to create the role of the, you know, medical marijuana consultant. And I've done some research on this as well. And there wasn't ever any kind of evaluation of the what that role should be was iteffective. Was the education that people were getting, did it do anything? It you know, and the default, I mean, that is the person that they're interfacing with. And the default for that is the clinician, and again, I've published research in this area, the clinicians are not comfortable with it, don't want to do it that gets liability for them. There are educational barriers within the institutions to doing this work with the clinicians, their barriers with the licensing boards. So I think if we want to talk about you know, having more education, we really need to understand what the state's role is in that. And I would start with that medical marijuana consultant role since Washington does certify them.
Thank you. Alright, Taylor,
I'll be real quick on this. The one thing I kind of want to that I think about sometimes in relation to this is like peanut butter. So there's a group of people that if they consume peanut butter, they die. There's kids at elementary schools, if they consume peanut butter, they die, yet we still allow peanut butter to be sold in stores. So there is this concept of due to genetic mutations, people can be at super high risk for a product when the general public that long term toxicities not that high. So there are other differences. Obviously, this is sometimes viewed as a drug and things like that. But there are other instances where a product is readily available that in a select group of people with a genetic mutation can have extremely bad side effects. So again, if we're looking at it from like, the potential role in schizophrenia things, there are some things out there where a small group is susceptible in a way that other people are not. And that could be you know, it doesn't always have to be mirrored in the way of like alcohol or other substances, you can look at it other ways of how people are distinguished in the use or consumption of an object and how that's kind of looked at and regulated and discussed in the way that products say, like, you know, if you made in a facility with the peanuts or house, you know, not necessarily putting those words, but just the concept that there may be other systems out there that could be mirrored or looked at on this topic.
I think that was a good closing comment. Thank you, Taylor. Okay, great.
So let's move on, we have about 20 minutes. So let's move on to the second topic on product stability. So the second topic was really brought out of a recently accepted rule petition to look at extending the expiration date of his certificate of analysis from 12 months to 18 months. And this petition has kind of brought attention, cannabis, product quality and safety measures. And within the past several months, there's also been questions and conversations about how various environmental factors like packaging and light can impact the cannabis product's stability across time and degradation. So and obviously, with there are so many different factors like harvesting and drying and curing and transportation that can all impact the quality of cannabis products and the safety and, and how long kind of it's it's a staple across time. So again, to further guide exploration in terms of what might be the best steps to move forward with this. These are the discussion questions that again, you saw from the previous email that was sent out last week. So I guess just to kind of start off this conversation, when you hear about stability of cannabis products. What kind of initially comes to mind in terms of the biggest factors to pay attention to?
It's there is this in my writing, remembering that this is Flora flower, only this stability or is it edibles as well?
That's a good question. And I'm curious when you're thinking about the differences of flour versus edible, if there are particular overlaps and or differences between between the two that you're thinking of,
in my mind, and you know, I open others feedback on this. I think they have different potential concerns, I would say. So I think that that as far as like cannabinoid degradation that degradation, the the cannabinoids are relatively safe. And I guess it becomes a question of whether the consumers are getting what they want and storage conditions. But I think there's a world in which people can store flour very safely for long periods of time and quite frankly, edibles as well. I think the difference becomes kind of food safety concerns and, and exploration of other ingredients and things like that in edible formats. And so that's why I asked is I think they just are different buckets as far as like, mainly the microbial concerns, but I open it up to other people.
Thank you. Yes, you're specifically saying that they can both last for long periods of time. But with edibles you're now in entering other food products that might differ Are you? Okay? Which makes sense. So then specifically about flower? I'm curious, when you say long periods of time, can you give a time estimation? Generally speaking,
I think some of the literature I've seen is if it's cured properly and stored in a cool condition, you know, couple of years, but I'm open to other people that may have seen different literature. And a lot of it has to do with, with how it is stored. I know Brad has his hand, he's ran a testing lab in this space, he probably has more feedback on it.
Yes, please, Brad?
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Jessica. The my understanding with either flower or a lot of cannabis products themselves that degradation generally doesn't create a hazard with the possible exception of what Jessica was alluding to and talking about, which is some microbiological concerns. But in general, if you have degradation of cannabinoids, you might have a small amount of CBN, or things like that. But you're not seeing the introduction of any of the contaminants that are being tested for in cannabis products. There's, you're not introducing pesticides, you're not introducing heavy metals. And, you know, for me, if there's no hazard that's been introduced, there's no safety concern, and therefore there shouldn't be any concern with with policy in terms of the length of C of a validity.
Thank you. So it's not so much about the safety, it's more so about, like the cannabinoid to concentration across time. Am I going back? Correct?
Yeah, in my opinion, there is that any small changes that may occur don't present a hazard so it doesn't change the safety profile, so therefore they don't matter.
Thank you, Brad. Sarah. Oh, you're still on mute.
in my anecdotal experience, untrimmed flower on the stem can be stored for forever without having much of anything happened to it. And so like maybe putting more regularly like looking at the way that people are storing their flour is maybe more important than finding out what happens to it later on because it seems like not a whole lot happens to it and we can maybe focus on like if the state is going to regulate something they could maybe have visitors check out where people are holding their flower instead of trying to define like well you can only have it for this amount of time and you can only do these things you can say like is it in a closed lit unlit spot? Is it pretty much cool is it pretty much you know, whatever this and then just kind of leave it at that rather than trying to bring in any more complicating factors.
So then a follow up question to that is when you're can you go a little bit more into detail about the specific storage factors that really play a large role
honestly, like we have herbs stored that's been here a long time and it is still exactly the same as it was seven to 10 years ago, it's just on its on its stick and when we want to use it we put it in a jar with a little bit of tortilla and it opens the flower up and it's ready to use and it's the exact same as it was 10 years ago when it was grown. So I feel like there isn't a lot of degradation things happening things changing with it that way
Jessica,
I think that the things that you need to look for kind of like heat and light you know light will lead to some degradation he and you know, kind of things like humidity. I mean it is it's it's a plant, you know, if it's too hot, too humid, you can get things like microbial growth and those kinds of things pop up on it. So cool and dark. David I know you popped your head up sorry. Or your hand up
your cover what I was gonna say cool, dark and dry. It's always best for everything. Can't always do that though. So the cooler the darker the dryer is going to be better for longevity.
cooler, darker and drier? Are there certain limits between cool, dark and dry? Where you go from? That's, you know, the more the better. But is there a certain limit where you're saying, okay, that's not not good?
I haven't seen data for the types of materials we're talking about be able to answer that directly. Associated, that's going to take somebody's going to have to look at some guidance on that.
So then, if,
sir, you know, I think Sarah's example here is a good one on one kind of expect, once you once you extract the compounds out, because it was something else that had all kinds of changes that you got, you know, whatever else is it that makes is going to potentially affect it. But then you got Brad's answer, which was, the cannabinoids are going to break down into things that are less active, more benign over time. So in terms of a safety issue, you're really looking at it like a food safety issue like the WSDA USDA deal with, with any other kind of product that people can see. That's really kind of the space you've been to. With the cannabinoids, you're just going to be losing efficacy over time, if they break down. Not gonna probably not gonna be an issue as they so whether it be sending safety.
Thank you, David. Jessica,
I know that you know this, to some level, I've heard from the medical community, there's concerns around how fresh their products are. And I would argue that it's really what, you know, how they've been tested microbial and things versus freshness. Do do we require a freshness date on it, or a harvest date? I forget, I think that got removed is that is that been removed from packaging?
Because the policy, folks from here want to clarify that.
It's optional. Right now, however, we do have a petition to reinstate mandatory harvest dates on labeling kits,
because one of the ways to approach this may be to put a harvest date on and then people can choose whether it's important to them or not. And you know, that way, if we believe that it's, you know, minor degradation or something like that's going on, but it will be safe, that people could opt to purchase older flower if they want. But they have the option of kind of knowing the date of flower if they choose to purchase newer flower.
As long as the product is the consumer, as long as I would know that that product was stored or held on to in a certain way after its harvest. And then before it was given to me in the store two or three years later, like I would be fine with that. Right now I'm not sure like is all that product trimmed and then sitting around and then it's going into my bag like three years later, like I would be, I would have a different feeling about buying a three year old herb that way than if that the person the factory person was added hanging, you know, in a little closet for forever, until they pulled it out to trim it to put it in the bags to have it be sold in the store three years later. Like I feel like that's too. It's different. It's different, or the way it store it makes a difference, I guess.
I agree, sir. But you as a consumer would then have like the option to select which one you purchased, based upon having that information that data is available for you.
Yeah, I mean, as long as I like had reassurance that that was stored properly before it was sold to me three years later, I wouldn't care, I guess is the consumer. But if I didn't know how they stored it, and you know, it's sitting out in their back patio for three years until they decided to bring those baggies into the store. Like I feel like that would be different situation. Tracy?
Thanks. Just a question. I don't understand much about the literature on the degradation of the other products that are on the list. And I also know that at least in Oregon, I'm kind of between Oregon and Washington. They can't pull products based on dates. They're just supposed to sell them in order. So there's no option to like request or look at that date.
Interesting. So, I'm curious then harvest date would help people become more knowledgeable about the harvest. But what I'm like speaking to what you were saying, Sarah, in this is, you know, an ideal world, if you were looking at a product, and it had a harvest date, and then it had information about storage, what would you be interested in seeing?
Like, if it's like product was stored according to standards of, you know, Washington state regulations or something like, and then we could, you know, as a body, like, make sure that these products are being stored according to the way that we think they should be stored. I mean, that would make sense to me, I guess.
Any other thoughts related to that?
I think it would be easy, especially apt Did, did you offer something that isn't as an opt in, and then if growers or producers just opted to not opt in, they wouldn't have to, but as a consumer, then you would be able to purchase product that you know, had the ability to opt in
I'm sorry, opt in to
a group and storage conditions, you know, I think that that there could be different, just like you could opt in to be an organic farmer, people could opt in to, you know, green to store in certain conditions.
Thank you. And then to what Tracy, you're saying. When we're thinking about like concentrates are there? Is it kind of the same with kind of the stability of how it's stored and degradation across time? And maybe again, what Brad, you're saying that, like, the cannabinoids might change slightly, but there's not really any other health or safety risks associated with concentrate storage? Tracy, I see your mouth, you know,
or, or topicals. You know, I know that. That's not really on this list. But if they're losing efficacy, then I mean, to me, that is a regulatory issue if people are continuing to sell something that's supposed to be effective, that and there's no control over the dates, you know, some of these things are just sitting there for years.
That's a great point. Thank you, Brad.
Thanks, Sarah. Compared to flower or plant material, concentrates generally are much more stable. They benefit things that David was saying cool, dark, and you know, just keeping things that way. But generally, concentrates are much more stable than flower. And the same applies that if there is any degradation happening, it does not appear to be introducing any sort of hazard. So there's not a safety concern that's being being you know, caused, there may be an efficacy or a freshness issue, but it's not a safety issue.
I mean, have you seen anything about topicals? Related to that bread?
I have not, no.
I found unadulterated flower to be very stable. If it's just chopped and hung, it stays exactly the way it is until it's manipulated.
Great. Any any other last thoughts on this topic? Hey, so just as a quick recap, from these conversations from the first topic related to defining high THC. My takeaways are right now there's so many factors that creating this strict definition of what high THC is might not be feasible because there are so many factors that influence kind of how much THC is being entered into the body and then whether and to what extent that produces risks for individuals both on the short term and on the long term. Education is super important to provide more education that is evidence based, potentially looking at heavy kind of factors related to what is considered heavy use, and frequency of use across time. And then potentially also looking at whether there's an ability to talk about servings per container based on vaping and smoking and edibles. Although that's also very complicated. Is there anything that I missed, or that was another important piece that that should be a main takeaway here? Okay, and then for the second topic, my main takeaway is that in general, across time, if these products are stored in a cool, dark and dry place, these products last for a very good amount of time, and there's not really any specific safety risk that can come from it, there might be slight changes in Android concentration. But other than that, if it's stored properly, then there is a long period of time in which these products are stable, and providing more information about harvest date, and potentially storage factors that went into a product might be helpful, again, for increasing consumer knowledge. Is there anything that I'm missing there? Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. Um, so I will. If anybody has any additional thoughts, please let me know. Otherwise. This has been a really great conversation. I'm realizing that has this shared screen been? Was this were you still able to see everyone through the shared screen? Okay, great. Let me stop sharing. Right. So I know that it's time any any considerations for next steps? If not, then we'll kind of take this information, consolidate it, and we'll we'll kind of go from there based on based on other conversations and these conversations as well. Okay, great. Thank you so much, everyone. I hope you have a good rest of your day. Appreciate it.
