Exposing Mold

Episode 81 - Testing for Mold in Cannabis with C4 Laboratories

• Kealy Severson, Erik Johnson, & Alicia Swamy • Episode 81

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C4 Laboratories is a dedicated cannabis and hemp testing and analytics company.  Our guests, Jessica Crozier is the Director of Operations of C4 Laboratories and Dakota Villanueva is the lab's Project Manager. C4 has not only become one of the largest, most trusted testing facilities in Arizona they are also at the forefront of cannabis research, education, and legislation. Although there is a lack of regulation and consistency in cannabis standards in Arizona, many businesses choose to test their medications to ensure they’re delivering safe, high-quality medications that will truly help patients. Their testing ensures contaminants such as foreign material, mildew, mold, or other harmful substances like pesticides are not present. By providing honest, accurate, easy-to-understand test results, businesses gain the confidence that their medications are safe, reliable, and consistent.

In this episode, we discuss specifics when it comes to testing cannabis.

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Kealy Severson:

Welcome to our podcast. My name is Kealy Severson and I'm here with my co-hosts, Erik Johnson and Alicia Swamy and we are Exposing Mold. Today we're here with Jessica and Dakota. Jessica and Dakota are from C4 laboratories, which is, why don't you tell us about C4 laboratories.

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

C4 laboratories is a cannabis testing laboratory based in Scottsdale, Arizona. We test everything that the Arizona Department of Health Services requires for compliant testing. And then we also do R&D testing for private growers as well. Like I said, we're fully compliant and fully in house testing services for all of Arizona and then hemp from anywhere in the United States.

Kealy Severson:

Thank you for explaining that I think the topic of testing hemp and cannabis products for mold contaminants is so important, especially to our audience because these medicines have such neuroprotective effects and they help with oxidative stress, which is some of the presentation we see in our sick population. And also, our population can have symptom flares from having contaminated CBD. There's some times where people will say, I took such and such hemp and CBD and it flared my lupus. Well, we see lupus presentations all the time as a presentation of mold illness. So it's like people don't even realize how many different health symptoms they can have that could be related to their contaminated medicines that they're trying to use. Jessica, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Yeah, mine is a unique story in that industry? my daughter has disabilities. She is 18 now and when she was about nine years old, her seizures were pretty bad. She was having about four to seven seizures a day. And I wanted to look into alternative treatments for her and her doctor was more interested in looking into brain surgery and that's something my husband and I were not not up for at that point. And I had some friends talk to us about the possible benefits of CBD. So I started doing my own research, I found an amazing documentary on CNN called "Weed" by Sanjay Gupta that sold me. I found a local mom on the news who was treating her son with CBD, and reached out to her and through a series of events was able to meet up with the right people and get the right products and saw immediate benefit to Emma. And because of the progress she was making with her seizures, I decided I needed to really help educate other parents about the benefits of CBD and treating epilepsy. And from that helped start a nonprofit organization to help educate those other parents and to help raise money for the costs because it's so expensive. And that nonprofit kind of morphed into a position with a larger dispensary group in the outreach and education department where I got to still do the same thing, teach and educate patients of all kinds. And from that I moved in over to C4 laboratories as the client outreach and educator and from there moved into manager and then director of operations. So it's been a journey and it's been an amazing journey, one that I am eternally grateful for.

Kealy Severson:

I always think it's so beautiful and somebody can take something that life has thrown at them and and turn it into something that helps other people like you're doing with your daughter's illness and thank you for sharing that. Dakota talk to us a little bit about your role in what you do?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

It's a little difficult to follow How often are you coming across contaminated cannabis? Is it a with Jessica just just mentioned, but you know, I recently graduated probably about five years ago now. And you know, kind of emphasizing what you were talking about, with potential contaminations and molds affecting people with very frequent occurrence and can you tell us what brands we can things they already have. It really interested me I know that cannabis in Arizona alone has recently been legalized. So that gave us the opportunity to start R&D and start figuring out all these issues that not a lot of the country could even start to do until the last few years. So that's kind of my passion, being able to help people with the industry and making sure that everyone's getting clean the medicine that they can use to help them benefit their symptoms. And that's really been my passion with the company. I'm currently the project manager. But I started over as a lab technician, I worked in the microbiology department to get us accredited for Aspergillus contamination, E. coli, and salmonella. I dabble a little bit in the analytical side with residual solvents and helping with pesticides to make sure that everyone's getting clean and safe cannabis and CBD in the state of Arizona. trust more? Well, unfortunately, I can't tell you what brands we can trust more. But you know, roughly towards the beginning, when we first started testing, there was a lot of contamination with most samples, truly. We could start with the microbial contamination Aspergillus, in Arizona, we detect or test for it for different strains. Towards the beginning, we did see a lot because the cultivators were still they weren't that knowledgeable, or familiar with a lot of these molds. And luckily, you know, they've been able to remediate a little bit more and work on fixing their problems with Aspergillus to start about was probably I'd say, in our laboratory, one of the most frequent things that we found in samples around the entire all of the analyses in our laboratory. I think it's safe to say Aspergillus, just because of the climate that we live in is a little more frequent than maybe some other climates. I mean, we're so dry and dusty and arid and so it's not surprising,

Kealy Severson:

is that the only mold that's tested for the products, or are there other molds looked for?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Specifically in Arizona, it's my knowledge just Aspergillus, four different strains, and it is a pass fail. So we use PCR, if it is detected, it's immediately they have a few options. They can either remediate it, if it's a flower or destroy it.

Kealy Severson:

How are those standards standards set for your industry to say like, Okay, this is how we're going to decide what to look for?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

I think really went Arizona was looking at the rules for regulating cannabis testing, they look to other states that have already done it. So I believe we took a lot of our like Pass/Fail levels from the Oregon standards that they have. And they also looked at California and Colorado to see what they were doing and I think they really just kind of looked at those states that had done it before us.

Kealy Severson:

Well, it's nice to hear now that growers are maybe a little bit more custom with or maybe more familiar with how to grow that they're preventing maybe mold growing on their plants. So at least there's a learning curve for sure. Alicia, do you have any questions?

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, I'm just curious. Thank you guys so much for coming on the show. This was really exciting for us. I don't know, out of the blue, I was just like, let's get some people on and talk about mold and cannabis because I am seeing an explosion of articles constantly in the news of contamination of these plants in Colorado and just New Mexico just everywhere. And I'm just curious is what is the most popular contaminant that you guys are finding is it simply mold or is it pesticides? Is it other things? What is it that you're finding most of in these plants?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

We are still finding the Aspergillus but like Dakota said, you know, people are now kind of getting the system down there. They're understanding what it takes to to make sure that their their plants are free from that contaminant. Pesticides are another one that we're finding a lot of and what is interesting is that you know, people might test flower with us and there might be pesticides in that flower, but it's not enough to for us to fail them it hasn't reached that limit. However, if they take that same flower and they make it concentrate, what it seems like the disconnect is that well when you're concentrating a flower and making it a concentrate, everything is concentrated from the cannabinoids to any of the contaminants that they found. So while the pesticides in that flower may have passed, when to make that into a concentrate, the pesticide levels are going to be concentrated in this higher and probably fail.

Alicia Swamy:

Wow. So what are companies doing to basically mitigate these issues? Crop loss means profit loss. So I'm sure they've come up with new ideas on how to control all these issues.

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

You know, we don't have exactly have techniques or anything to give them. We don't have any say, we could say, hey, we we tested your sample, it came back with positive for Aspergillus. And we give them that that's all we can do. On our side, we don't have any jurisdiction. We give them recommendations and we try to, you know, we're willing to go out to environmental tests and help them find their solutions. But realistically, it's still up in their hands, too. There are ways to remediate sometimes. But yeah, sometimes it is just a profit loss. Correct me if I'm wrong. But if there is mold found in flower, can they remediate, make it into a concentrate and eradicate that mold? Correct, Yeah. So so there are options depending upon what the flower or what the product is. And then what the contaminant is. One thing that I think is really interesting is that while we're testing these products, and, you know, we have some clients that continue to for say, Aspergillus, one service that we do offer is going into their growth facility, their production facility, and doing environmental testing. And that includes surface testing, air samples, and just kind of like the nooks and crannies of their production facility. And a lot of times it's in like the air vents or the surfaces that they're not even thinking about that they might be cleaning with, like, say, just regular rubbing alcohol. But that's not strong enough to kill some of these spores and so it's been really enlightening for us, and then to the clients as well to be able to go into their facility and help them kind of pinpoint where the sources.

Alicia Swamy:

Wow. So how often are you seeing contamination from building versus just plants being contaminated?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

That's hard to say, because we don't have all of our clients utilizing these these services and doing the environmental testing that we hoped they would. It's something that we offer to everyone, but ultimately, it's up to them. It's unfortunate. Sometimes I think some growers want to stick their head in the sand and say, No, it's not me. It's not us. It's not our facility. It's just what was in the flower and that's unfortunate. We just continue to educate others in hopes that they will really take into account what we're saying and trust our experience with the situation and utilize these services.

Alicia Swamy:

Thank you. I'm just really curious because I know some states have different laws where you can only grow indoors. I think Nevada is indoor only. I know Oregon has a little bit more leniency where you can grow outdoors. I'm just really curious. I don't know if you know this, but I wanted to throw this question out there. Are you seeing contamination more from plants being grown indoors versus naturally outdoors?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Well, in Arizona, you know, we're obviously a very hot and arid climate. So growing outdoors doesn't happen often, we do have outdoor grows is allowed. It's up north of us and it's only I think maybe two times in the year that really they have windows for growing opportunities. When we get the flower we don't do anything different. If it's done outdoors. It's grown outdoor rather versus indoor. In fact, most of the time we don't even know. So it's hard to say but I would say probably 80 or 90% of the flower that's grown in Arizona is indoor, but outdoor I could definitely see more potential contamination especially with Aspergillus.

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, I wonder because valley fever is such a big problem in Arizona. I wonder if like even that can contaminate the plants and cause issues I mean, I don't know I'm just dreaming things up here. And please forgive me if I'm if I may have missed this earlier in your guys's conversation with Kealy but so you guys are only focusing on Aspen right now on your PCR testing or do test for other species as well?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

In terms of Aspergillus?

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, so in terms of your testing methodology, you're doing a PCR of Aspen is it Are you only culturing for Aspen or looking for Aspen or do you have like a whole PCR list of maybe 30-35 species that you're looking at for contamination in these crops?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

So specifically for Aspergillus, we're looking for for different species, just the name to off of my head fumigatus, flavus and then another step we can kind of discuss afterwards is including that just Aspergillus testing, we do mycotoxin testing to detect for aflatoxin, ochratoxin, byproducts of these Aspergillus' per se, and then we do additional salmonella testing, E. coli testing, just like any other.

Alicia Swamy:

Like bacterial testing and everything. Oh, wow. That's very interesting. And so when you say that, you know this farmer had a bad batch. I mean, do you ever hear anything from the consumer side? Or Is anyone calling you and saying, Look, I had reaction, I want to send this for testing because I think this is contaminated and this farmer may have harmed me. Are you seeing a rise of that happening these days?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Not as much as we had in the beginning, we definitely did. We'd have clients call us and say, this is like hurting my throat. I've never felt like this when I'm trying this flower before. I know it passed, however, I want to check for myself. And so we definitely do. Like I said, we do R&D so that would be kind of fallen under the R&D umbrella of private consumers wanting to test their medicine. And so we have seen an uptick in that it's kind of leveled off now because it feels like cultivators, brands, growers, they are taking the rules seriously, and actually making sure that everything is passing and so it's tapered off, fortunately.

Alicia Swamy:

Well, that's good. I mean, the whole industry is fairly new, right, legalizing it, and processing all this stuff. And so everyone's trying to work out the kinks and figure out, how do we do this? What's the best way? And how can we produce the most highest quality product? Right?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Yeah, the crazy thing is, is that Arizona, we've had a medical market since 2010. But we just started, we just passed the bill for for testing, mandatory testing in 2020. So we were like 10 years, like literally the wild, wild west, like learning all these bad habits. And now all of a sudden, you know, these brands, they have to do these tests, they have to provide the COAs and everything. And it was messy. It was really messy in the beginning, but I feel like we've finally kind of found our groove. Everyone is understanding of what is expected of them and for the most part, you know, abiding by the rules.

Alicia Swamy:

That's awesome. And since you brought up medical cannabis, I'm just curious, are there differences in quality between the two is like medical cannabis, like testings more stringent like is there a whole other different process versus recreational?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Yeah, yeah, cannabis, you know, medicinal and recreational they do have different regulations, for example, we test Aspergillus for medicinal cannabis. But Aspergillus is actually not required by recreational in the state of Arizona. That's a big one. Yeah, that's probably the biggest one. And it makes zero sense, whatsoever. The good news is that we find that all of our clients really, they just test for metal for the medical side. Because if you test your products for the medical side, that can still be sold on the recreational side. However, if you are testing the recreational products, you can't sell recreational products to a medical patient. So they're they're doing their due diligence and just getting it medically tested so they can sell to both without having any concern. So it's fortunate in that way, it's unfortunate that it was written that way because it just it makes zero sense, especially with like Aspergillus, like, why wouldn't you have that mandated for every kind of testing?

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, absolutely. We're akin to, and we're very curious of molds like the trike with the scene producers like fusarium and Stachy and I mean, Kealy, Erik, and I have been severely injured by Stachybotrys in our homes. And so I'm just wondering how often those type of molds are found in crops?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Unfortunately, because Arizona doesn't mandate like those specific strains, we don't know. Yeah, our micro team is great at what we do. But outside of you know, those those other strains that you mentioned we don't have too much knowledge on it.

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, I'm curious. So if you guys are going, so you're, so you're offering a few arms here, you're offering testing for plants, but you're also offering testing for environment. So and those tests are varying, and I'm assuming you are actually including those trichothecene producers in your environmental testing, correct or no?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Realistically, when a client comes to us, you know, they're asking us, why do we have this Aspergillus problem? Why are you failing our samples? Basically, we say, Hey, listen, you know, we're detecting Aspergillus, here, we're more than willing to come out to your facility and do some environmental testing specifically looking just for Aspergillus, in this case. If they asked for it, we would most definitely be able to in our facilities, but for example, we would, you know, do swabs and specific places air samples, and kind of figure out where that source is coming from. I personally have been on site at cultivation and you know, done some air sampling and testing and found out that there was Aspergillus in one of the corners growing in their facility and the flower wasn't actually testing for something positive itself, but it was concentrates and it was from after it was grown because it was grown clean, but the Aspergillus was finding its way onto the sample afterwards, because we don't know how long they actually hold on to that flower, how long it sits in the dark, how long it's just, it's just there before they even touched it or sell it to anyone.

Alicia Swamy:

Yeah, it's just so interesting because, you know, mold, our co host, Erik, who's been in the mold game for 35 years, who always say that, you know, mold and buildings, it's like, unheard of and making people sick. And all of a sudden, it's like, we have this explosion and I guess what a lot of people don't make that make the connection to is like, a lot of people are getting injured by mold in their homes. Well, what about what's going on in industry, like, I know a person who knows a person who works for a vaccine maker's factory, and they're having major microbial issues. And they're having a major hard time trying to control the microbial issues within the vials themselves while they're producing these vaccines. So it's just like, man, it's not just a home thing, it is a business thing. Businesses are all so they're also having a really hard time controlling this problem that has just exploded within the last 30 years. And I'm just curious and Dakota, I don't know how long you've been in this game of testing. But on your experience, are you noticing just an increase of I guess, Aspen or mold issues?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

It's been pretty steady, you know, especially in Arizona, we have different microbiomes. So we're seeing every single thing possible when it comes to temperatures, times of day, anything you can think of it's been pretty steady. But it has been, I'd say my opinion and knowledge and working at this company has been pretty elevated for mold in particular, that's like, you know, like we emphasized on before, that's one of the biggest things that clients fail when they test their samples with us.

Kealy Severson:

If there was a company who wanted to test their products above and beyond what the current requirements are, is that something that you could work out with them? Like if we had a CBD that we wanted to test, but we wanted to look for other molds, just for our own peace of mind and go above and beyond the requirement.DDo you have like, the, the equipment to help us with that?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Yeah, so you know, what we are testing for, you know, we are under the assumption that eventually, you know, this is going to be federally legal, the testing and everything will be more strict. So we are always ready for stuff like that. And that includes, you know, we do do a lot of R&D. If a client comes to us with any issue, we want to help them solve it. If they want more molds, we're definitely gonna be able to do that for them R&D and internal validation. You know, we're willing to work, we're willing to learn, we want to help people and we want to make sure that we can do everything that they need to know so that they can get their safe product to people. Yeah, practically speaking, it does take a little bit of time and extra money doesn't mean that we certainly wouldn't do it. Of course, we'll look into it. But it does require things that is just not the can't just swap something and look for a new strain of mold. But it's definitely something that we can talk to the client about research look into see how much time and money it would take to test for a different kind of mold than what we already test for. But it's definitely we're always open to discussion on that. That's possible. Yeah, absolutely.

Kealy Severson:

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Alicia Swamy:

I guess if anyone listening today any I mean we have such a varied audience. It's like professionals to patients to just everyone. If anyone wanted to consult with your company, where can they reach out to you?

C4 Laboratories (Jessica + Dakota):

Absolutely you can find us on the internet www.c4lab.com. That is the letter C the number four L A B as in boy.com. So you can find out a lot of information there you can always reach out to us on the phone 480-219-6460 and alternatively, you can email myself or Dakota Jessica@c4laboratories.com and Dakota@c4laboratories.com.

Alicia Swamy:

Fantastic thank you guys. We're interested in learning more from a grower to I don't know if you can make any recommendations or anything like that. But we'd be really open to maybe getting into the nitty gritty of growing and what they're doing to control their contamination. Cool. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. It was a great conversation with Jessica and Dakota we were learning a little bit more about cannabis testing. And we reached out basically because we're trying to figure out what the heck is going on with all this contamination everywhere. So they really provided us some great information to see what the industry is doing to control that and to provide better quality products for their patients and for the recreational users. So thank you again, everyone. We'll see you next time.