Replies to post #48240 on Livewire Ergogenics Inc (LVVV)

[JDizzle]

Not at all. Remember, LVVV is not selling MJ only, CLONES, and also even bigger aspect of all this is 7x PURE, this in itself could be a potential game changer for the entire industry. When it comes to this stuff, it is going to be regulated, no questions about it.. The black market stuff is more for the REC USE.. LVVV is not focused on this aspect of the business as much as they are with 7x Pure, and Medical use. A NON issue imo.

[User-65225]

No, because most of the weed on the market won’t pass the mandatory testing that’s coming on July 1.

Other news releases claim that California has critical shortages and It won’t get better for a long time, because thousands of growers are being eliminated from the market by county bans

[User-65225]

California’s Cannabis Industry Is Facing a Crisis of Capitalism
By Chris Roberts • 03/19/18 6:15am

http://observer.com/2018/03/california-faces-cannabis-undersupply-growers-struggle-to-get-permits/
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Through March 12, the state’s new Cal Cannabis licensing bureau had issued fewer than 3,000 marijuana cultivation permits. Without a state permit, growers are locked out of participation in California’s new $7 billion legal commercial marijuana industry. Since many entities have nabbed multiple permits—in some cases grabbing 30 or more in order to take advantage of a loophole in the law and open cannabis plantations of near-unlimited size—roughly one percent of California’s marijuana growers are currently legitimate in the eyes of the state, according to a worrisome report released by CalGrowers.
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A better question to ask is who such a situation benefits. Like most “crises” in capitalism, any constriction of cannabis will make a few people fabulously wealthy. And a sudden shortage of weed is fantastic news if you’re one of the few with access to the commodity.
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Since California has had a heretofore semi-regulated (at best) market, the imposition of rules meant some disruption was inevitable. In California, one worry is that come July 1, when new regulations around pesticide use kick in—until then, almost all pot in the state is smoke at your own risk—almost all of those 13.5 million pounds will fail required lab tests.
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There’s time to pivot, and straightening out kinks in the cannabis industry will occupy much of this year’s session in the state Legislature. But a die’s been cast. The state is well on its way to a world in which retailers will be able to present mediocre product at eye-popping prices, prices that tourists or wealthy neophytes will happily shell out, for a while at least. This is terrific news for the one percent of growers that are licensed. When you have the commodity, a “crisis”-level shortage is the best possible scenario.

[User-65225]

Here's Why Most California Cannabis Cultivators Don't Have Licenses
February 23, 2018

https://www.greenmarketreport.com/heres-california-cannabis-cultivators-dont-licenses/
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Local Policy
Local cannabis regulations in California is, to say the least, a hodgepodge of conflicting rules passed by municipalities struggling to understand the legal cannabis market. As of February 2018, only 13 out of 58 California counties have passed laws allowing commercial cannabis activities

Six counties are likely to pass ordinances in the new future, while 14 more counties are currently studying the issue. Nearly half of California counties (25) have already passed bans on commercial cannabis activity.

Of those counties that have actually passed ordinances allowing cannabis activity, many have implemented caps on the number cannabis business permits available. For example, Trinity County only has 500 available cannabis business permits despite having more than 4,000 cultivators operating in the area.

Similarly, local zoning ordinances have made it increasingly difficult for cultivators. In Sonoma County, for example, a local ban on rural residential and agricultural residential areas have helped to exclude over 3000 cannabis cultivators from the market.

Likewise, in urban areas, many zoning ordinances have left cannabis businesses huddled in small business districts; which in turn have helped spike local real estate prices, thus further making it difficult for small-scale cannabis cultivators.

[User-65225]

Clones are often completely dipped in pesticides and when the bud matures, is can fail the mandatory testing, costing a grower big $$$, or even their entire business... and no way are they going to pay $400 to have each clone tested, they want assurance that wont cost them much = 7X Pure

According to a recent report from California cannabis testing lab Steep Hill, much of the state’s widespread pesticide problem can actually be traced back to clones. In October of 2016, Steep Hill shocked the state with a report that estimated that 84% of California cannabis wasn’t “fit for human consumption.”
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Of 124 total clones tested for potentially dangerous pesticides, only 17 contained no detectable residues. Only 22% of all clones passed muster under California’s cannabis pesticide thresholds, which are stricter than nearby Oregon’s.

...and the state is about to get even more strict on the allowable limits.
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The report added that many growers don’t consider early application of pesticides, either in the clone’s soil or by dipping the clone in a pesticide solution, to be a risk. Cannabis “lore,” it says, holds that four to five generations of plants is enough to flush out any residual pesticides.
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“Less than 14% of 124 randomly selected clones from different regions were free of any pesticide residue,” the report warns, “and 77.4% of the clones tested failed current proposed California cannabis pesticide regulations. It is clear there is a need for clone monitoring.”

The levels of pesticide in some plants were as high as 8,300 times California’s threshold limits.

https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/lab-test-finds-77-of-california-clones-contaminated-with-pesticides

[User-65225]

With Growers in the Shadows, California Faces Cannabis Shortage

https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/with-growers-in-the-shadows-california-faces-cannabis-shortage

[User-65225]

“Buyer Beware” as California Starts Recreational Marijuana Sales without Pesticide Residue Testing
(Beyond Pesticides, December 20, 2017)

https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2017/12/buyer-beware-california-starts-recreational-marijuana-sales-without-pesticide-testing/

The California Bureau of Cannabis Control’s (CBCC) emergency rules implementing its legal cannabis market phases in quality testing for cannabis throughout 2018. However, when shops open on January 1st, retailers will be allowed to sell cannabis products without laboratory testing for pesticides or other contaminants, though they will have to be labeled as such. Any cannabis products harvested after January 1, 2018 will be tested for “contaminants with a high public health risk.” By July 1, 2018, “moderate relative health risk” contaminants will be tested, and by the end of the year the state will include “minor relative health risk” testing, according to a fact sheet released by the CBCC. A list of what pesticides are considered under each of those categories is available on page 92 of CBCC’s emergency regulations.

[User-65225]

California Pot Shots: Product Liability Is Coming

https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/california-pot-shots-product-liability-is-coming/

I’ve practiced law in enough regulated cannabis states to know that quality assurance, testing, and protecting the public through total product perfection isn’t going to be easy or cheap, and it’s going to be mandatory if you want to keep your cannabis license. Still, even with your best quality-assurance game face, you may not (more like never) escape the toe catch that is products liability. And with California being such a litigious state, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board recently pointed out, it’s only a matter of time before even more plaintiffs start suing cannabis operators alleging defective, dangerous, or mislabeled products and Prop 65 violations.

Just the mere fact that my firm’s cannabis attorneys have written so many blog posts and articles on cannabis safety and cannabis product liability ought to tell you how truly important this issue will be in California once things truly get rolling here.

The demand for a system like 7X Pure is going to shoot through the roof

[User-65225]

Study: 80% of San Fran Bay Area Marijuana Poses Health Hazards, Such as Cancer

https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/study-80-san-fran-bay-area-marijuana-poses-health-hazards-such-cancer

“The greatest threat standing in the way of California’s march toward legalized marijuana isn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Big Pharma. It’s the cannabis industry itself,” San Francisco Magazine reports:

“Much of the roughly $1 billion in cannabis sold in California’s 1,000-plus dispensaries every year is dirty.”

[User-65225]

Will California’s Pesticide Regulations Hurt the Weed Industry?

“You can see how almost nobody in the industry is growing a safe product,” he said. “I have been in zero grows over 4,000 [or] 5,000 square feet that I haven’t seen banned substances.”

http://www.laweekly.com/news/californias-cannabis-could-be-cleaner-than-its-organic-produce-8517714

[User-65225]

Fungus In Medical Marijuana Eyed As Possible Cause In California Man’s Death

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/02/06/medical-marijuana-fungus-death-uc-davis-medical-center/

These weren’t just any pathogens, they were looking at the very fingerprints of a killer.

“The cannabis was contaminated with many bacteria and fungi, some of which was compatible with the infections that I saw in my patients,” Tuscano said.

“Klebsiella, E.coli, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, these are all very serious infections for anybody in the hospital. But particularly in that population, the cancer population,” Thompson.

One of questions this raises is whether the risk is made worse by smoking, which could send pathogens directly into the lungs, which are particularly vulnerable.

Truth is, there’s really isn’t much research on any of this. “But we think now,” Thompson says, “with some of these patients, it’s really unknowingly self-inflicted form cannabis use.”

Cannabis, labeled medicinal, that could pose a lethal threat to already vulnerable patients.

[User-65225]

(2 videos) Pesticides and Pot: What's California Smoking?

This year California and other states will start testing for pesticides, mold, potency, etc, which is the best saleman we could ever have for a system like 7X Pure

If a grower fails, their entire crop will be confiscated and burned, so it does not end up on the black market.

Pesticides and Pot: What's California Smoking?

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/I-Team-Marijuana-Pot-Pesticide-California-414536763.html

Heres the followup video...

Marijuana Dispensaries Pull Products After I-Team Investigation Discovers Pesticide Laced Pot
California's Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation says safety regulations are coming by the end of the year

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/I-Team-Pot-Marijuana-Dispensary-Investigation-417682983.html

[User-65225]

What's Really Inside Your Cannabis Vape Cartridge?

https://www.merryjane.com/health/whats-really-inside-cannabis-vape-cartridges

In a recent investigation into cannabis oil, 44 products were tested for 16 different pesticides at Steep Hill Labs in Berkeley, California. The lab found that 41 out of the 44 products (or 93 percent of them) tested positive for pesticides at high enough quantities that certain states which regulate pesticides in cannabis products would ban them. "There are no failing levels in California [because] there are no regulations," explains Reggie Gaudino, vice president of scientific operations and director of intellectual property at Steep Hill. Only the city of Berkeley has a cap on total pesticides at 100 parts per billion—far stricter than statewide regulations in Oregon or Colorado, which have various multi-hundred part-per-billion caps on individual pesticides applied to cannabis.

In the manufacturing process, pesticides might also concentrate at higher rates than cannabinoids: for example, a cannabinoid like THC might concentrate fourfold, but a pesticide could concentrate twentyfold. With the trade-off of compact, potent, and inconspicuous THC comes an elevated risk of inhaling less appetizing chemicals. "The entire industry has to look to the right standard to build, and stop thinking of ourselves as, 'Oh we're the underground, everything is cool, we can just grow bud in the basement and sell it," Gaudino says. "If you want [cannabis] to be legitimate and a medicine, we have to start thinking like pharmaceutical companies do and grow our medical supply in a manner that is in accordance with medical use." That means not drenching the bud in toxic chemicals that could make sick patients sicker.

"There's not a ton of transparency in the [vaporizer] processes right now," says Aaron Justis, CEO of the LA-based Buds & Roses dispensary. But as the industry evolves, he says, people will start to demand higher quality products. And with more competition, those that aren't transparent about their processes, or who vend cheaply-made products, may ultimately get weeded out. Regulation due to debut in 2018 in California may also yield opportunities for legislators to hold vape companies accountable for the quality and safety of their products.

"It will change in the future, once they're lab tested and regulated. I would say the more pure the oil is, the better," says Justis. "That's what people want right now. Vape pens are a growing part of the industry; it's not going away."

[User-65225]

‘Unclean’ Cannabis More Than a Pest for the Cannabis Industry
Departments - From the Editor
March 16, 2017
Noelle Skodzinski
SUBSCRIBE
http://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/unclean-cannabis-more-than-a-pest-for-the-cannabis-industry/

The past few months have not been kind to the cannabis industry when it comes to product safety. But fate is not to blame.

In February, a rare fungal infection believed to have originated from tainted medical marijuana killed a California man being treated for cancer, CBS Los Angeles reported. The cancer treatment weakened the man’s immune system, “but his death still surprised doctors because he was relatively young and his cancer was beatable.” When doctors learned he used medical cannabis to ease the treatment’s side effects, they tested 20 medical marijuana samples from across the state, finding that “the vast majority were contaminated with dangerous bacteria and fungi,” reported the CBS affiliate.

In October 2016, cannabis testing and analysis firm Steep Hill Labs reported that “84.3 percent of cannabis samples submitted in Steep Hill’s Berkeley lab tested positive for pesticide residues.” The main culprit was myclobutanil, which is used for prevention and control of mildew outbreaks. The chemical was present in over 65 percent of tested samples. When burned, myclobutanil converts into hydrogen cyanide, which is listed as a chemical warfare agent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There has been little improvement since then, according to the director of public relations at Steep Hill, Cathie Bennett Warner.

In November 2016, Oregon issued its second health alert “for marijuana contaminated with pesticides or pesticide ingredients, in this case three strains of marijuana flowers sold from dispensaries in Salem, Eugene and North Bend,” reported Oregon Live. The “tainted marijuana ended up on store shelves after apparently failing lab tests. Health authority officials are investigating why that happened. Producers are supposed to destroy the strains that fail pesticide tests,” the article explained.

In January, “Organigram, a publicly traded grower based in Moncton, New Brunswick, in Southeastern Canada, expanded a Dec. 28 recall of a small amount of product to include almost all of its cannabis buds and oils produced in 2016,” reported the Globe and Mail. Residual levels of two banned pesticides, myclobutanil and bifenazate, were found in the medical marijuana operation’s products, according to CBC News Nova Scotia.

Testing regulations are becoming more stringent in the United States and Canada, the latter of which, until recently, didn’t require mandatory testing. Health Canada changed its policy last month and “will begin random testing of medical marijuana products to check for the presence of banned pesticides after product recalls affecting nearly 25,000 customers led to reports of illnesses and the possibility of a class action lawsuit,” CBC News Nova Scotia reported.

I believe most cultivators wouldn’t intentionally put out a dangerous product. But the tragic death of the California man and the extremely discouraging test results are a wake-up call. Test your products even if regulations don’t require it. Make sure they are safe for human consumption. Legalization is supposed to help provide safe cannabis to the public, not endanger lives.


Noelle Skodzinski, Editor [e-mail] | 856-979-2081 | Twitter: @editorCBT