All right. Thank you again, everyone for joining us today. We've put my mouse on the right screen here. My name is Gloriann Robinson and I am the hearing officer today representing Derek Sandison, director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture. And I'm going to call this hearing to order now at 1:03pm. All right, so please be aware that this hearing is being recorded, and the recording will be part of the department's official rulemaking file. This hearing is going to be held to accept oral and written comments on the proposed establishment of chapter 16 Dash 309 of the Washington Administrative Code, which will be the cannabis Laboratory Accreditation standards program. Notice of this hearing was filed with the office of the code reviser on February 21 2024, and published in The Washington State register on March 20 2020. For information regarding the hearing was provided on the agency's website and sent directly to interested parties. Let's see just for the record will state that this hearing is being held on Tuesday, April 9 2024, and one o'clock pm using the Microsoft team's video and teleconferencing service. I am going to be keeping all online and audio attendees muted to prevent disruptive background noises. during the public comment period, you may unmute yourself to provide oral comment. If you wish to out of courtesy for all attending today I ask that you please keep yourself muted prior to that public comment portion of the hearing. And just in general when you're not speaking. Attending today with me is Tricia Erlich program manager of the cannabis program. Tricia will be giving the technical report this hearing is going to consist of two parts. So first, Tricia will provide a brief technical presentation on the proposed rule. And then after that presentation, you'll have the opportunity to provide your comments regarding the proposed rule. A summary of all comments received both oral and written will be compiled and presented to the Director of the Department of Department of Agriculture in the form of a hearing officer Report. If the department decides to move forward with rulemaking after today's hearing, a concise explanatory statement of the rule will be prepared and provided to every person from whom the agency was received comment, and any other person who requests it. The concise explanatory statement will identify the agency's reasons for adopting the rule, describe the differences between the text of the proposed rule and the text of the rule being adopted if there are any differences and provide a response to the comments received indicating how the final rule reflects agency consideration of the comments or why it fails to do so.
All right, so at this time, I'm gonna go ahead and turn the time over to Tricia for the technical report.
Hello, thank you so much. All right. Here's the background House Bill 1859 Chapter law chapter 135 laws of 2022 created an interagency coordination team for cannabis laboratory quality standards. The team consists of the Department of Agriculture, the Washington State liquor and cannabis board and the Department of Health. W USDA was designated as the lead agency for the team and must provide all necessary administrative support. The bill also required W USDA to establish and maintain cannabis testing laboratory quality standards by rule. The cannabis testing laboratory quality standards must include but are not limited to an approval process for methods for testing cannabis for compliance with product standards established by rule by the LCB or the do h method validation protocols and performance measures and criteria applied to the testing of cannabis products. The proposed rule creates that new chapter of roll which is intended to expand laboratory quality standards, first created by the Washington State liquor and cannabis board as required by House Bill 1859. For the purpose of enhancing the integrity of cannabis testing in Washington State, the WS DEA filed a CR 102 and held a public hearing on December 28 2023. After considering the public public's comments, it was decided that a supplemental search one or two will be filed in order to provide clarity and consistency within the rule set and remove the methods from the rule instead requiring the use of an agency approved method and providing a process for laboratories to submit their own methods for approval. We took an extensive amount of time to reach out and meet with laboratories to review their comments, provide updated drafts and edit the role. The department is proposing to revise chapter 16 309 WACK by creating education and training requirements for laboratory personnel which depend on position or testing responsibilities require standard operating procedure criteria for all laboratory testing requires sampling and homogenization protocols for sample preparation, requiring security and safety protocols for the laboratory and for the laboratory staff, requiring the use of quality control and assurance protocols for laboratory testing, establishing facilities and equipment maintenance criteria for the laboratory, establishing method performance criteria for laboratory testing, establishing quality control method performance criteria specific to each required test, water activity testing cannabinoid concentration analysis, foreign matter inspection, microbiological screening, residual solvents screening, mycotoxin screening, pesticide screening and heavy metal screening, establishing required standardized testing procedures for cannabinoid concentration analysis, residual solvents and heavy metal screening, establishing quality control method performance criteria for analyte testing outside of product testing requirements, as established by the LCB, creating laboratory computers and information systems requirements, establishing method validation criteria for laboratory testing, establishing a process by which laboratories can submit their own methods for approval, establishing minimum proficiency testing standards for laboratories, establishing certificate of analysis report requirements, establishing procurement protocols for the selection and purchasing of services and supplies for the laboratory and establishing sample subcontracting requirements for third party services. And that is all are there any questions? Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Trecia.
Find my mouse again. All right, so we're gonna move on to the oral comment portion of today's hearing. And just to make that hearing process as effective and efficient as possible, I'm going to go over a few guidelines. If you would like to comment today, please raise your hand so that we may call on you. And the way that you do this if you're online is by pressing your the hand icon in the upper right corner of your screen, it says raise. And if you're calling in, you may raise your hand by pressing star five on your phone. When your name or phone number if you're calling in is called you may unmute yourself using the microphone icon also in the upper right corner of your screen, or by pressing star six on your phone. And in order for every person wishing to comment to have the opportunity to do so, comments should be concise and relate directly to this proposed rule language. The once everyone who wishes to comment has done so anyone who wishes to make additional comments on the proposed rule will have the opportunity to do so as well. Out of courtesy for all those who are present again, just especially those wishing to comment, we just ask that you not interrupt anybody that speaking and keep yourselves muted. Also, if you have any long statements from written copy written texts that you would like to submit, you may provide that information to me via email at WSDA rules comments all one word at AGR dot WA dot GOV. It is very important that your comments are understood and correctly recorded. So as the hearing officer, I may ask you questions that helped me to better understand your statements. All right, so I'll now go ahead and hear your comments. Again, if you wish to comment, please raise your hand so that you can be called on either by clicking the hand icon on your screen or by pressing star five on your phone. And then when your name is called. You can unmute yourself by clicking on the microphone icon or pressing star six on your phone. And for the record when you begin speaking we ask that you identify yourself spell your last name for the record and identify whom you're representing if anyone All right, time is yours.
Amber, go ahead.
Hi, yeah, this is Amber, why is calling from Medicine Creek Analytics. My last name is W-i-s-e. I'm the Science Director here. And I just wanted to say, first of all, I very much appreciated all of the collaboration and working with a labs that the State Department of Ag has done during this rulemaking process. And I just wanted to sort of go on record with, excuse me one, one small section that I still am quite concerned about in terms of cost. And with no real improvement in scientific quality, and that's section 3091 20. And section to see what requiring matrix spikes and matrix spikes duplicates for every batch. With that, what that means is we have to purchase these standards, in order to spike on to a sample matrix at the beginning of the process at a very high concentration. And those standards are only available to us at relatively low concentrations and at very high prices. And so there's another section in that same quality assurance, Section six that requires an internal standard for each batch. And that would give a good indication for recovery. While you know, the in matrix method validations should confirm any sort of matrix interferences that you might see from that compound in that matrix. So I just sort of want to go on record and say that that's going to really increase the cost. And if if we could just do the internal standard and in matrix method validations that that would be able to maintain current cost levels. So yeah, I think that's all I want to say and looking forward to some you know, new accreditation standards and all the labs hopefully being enforced and held to the same standards across the board.
Thank you Amber.
Anybody else wishing to comment today?
All right. Well, since it appears that all attendees wishing to comment on the proposed rule have done so we are going to move to to conclude today's hearing. This hearing has been held to accept oral and written comments on the proposal to establish chapter 16 Dash 309 of the Washington Administrative Code. All oral and written comments will become part of the official hearing record. The deadline for sending in written comments is five o'clock pm today April 9 2024. written comments should be addressed to me Gloria Ann Robinson at the Washington State Department of Agriculture PO Box 42560 Olympia Washington 98504 Dash 2560. Britton comments may also be emailed to WSDA rules comments at AGR dot WA dot gov. A final decision on adopting the proposed rule will be made on April 16 2024. On behalf of director Derek Sandison, the cannabis program and myself, we thank you for participating today. This hearing is adjourned at 1:17pm Have a great day everybody
