Colorado May Soon be the Land of Certified Organic Weed
People who love organic food and products know that you have to do your research before you buy. Well, the same goes for organic weed lovers (yes, they exist, ahem). As you know, just because someone at a cannabis cafe or marijuana dispensary says the weed (or pot product) you’re buying is organic doesn’t mean it really, truly is. Well, Colorado would like to change that.
Because pot is illegal at the federal level and “organic standards are regulated at the federal level,” Fortune reports, there’s currently no certification system in place for “organically grown” marijuana. This means that people can technically grow weed and say it’s organic — even if it’s not — without being punished.
The state of Colorado is irked by folks who are selling fake organic weed and think that weed consumers have the right to know what they are consuming. That’s why Colorado Representative Jonathan Singer is “sponsoring a bill that will allow organic regulation at the state level,” Fortune reports. “It [the bill] will be heard before the state House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee for the first time on Friday [February 19, 2016]. The bill doesn’t actually lay out standards for organic marijuana, but requests that a third party be enlisted by the state’s agricultural department to draft them.”
The fake organic weed got on Colorado’s radar when Denver health authorities found and confiscated supposedly “natural and organic” marijuana plants. The marijuana growers were apparently “suspected of using prohibited chemicals,” Fortune reports. Nice.
“While the measure, HB16-1079, doesn’t specify what growers would have to do to get the certification, it instead directs the state’s agricultural department to get a third party to draft the regulations,” The Cannabist reports. “The bill also doesn’t say which pesticides would be off-limits for organic growers.”
The move also would crack down on how marijuana is marketed — basically, you can’t say it’s organic if it isn’t.
This is an important move because if the bill is accepted in Colorado, other pot producing states may write similar legislation.
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Image of weed farmer via Shutterstock
