USDA: National THC Testing Standard for Hemp Remains a Challenge

August 22, 2019

USDA: National THC Testing Standard for Hemp Remains a Challenge

By Hemp Industry Daily

Federal agriculture authorities are struggling to craft a nationwide THC testing standard so that state and local regulators can tell hemp from marijuana, complicating the release of standardized production rules, according to an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

William Richmond, head of the Specialty Crops Program in the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, told a group of dietary-supplement and CBD business owners (at the American Herbal Products Association’s Hemp-CBD Congress in Denver) last week the agency hoped to have hemp rules prepared by now.

But he said that the USDA is grappling with the Farm Bill‘s requirement for a national THC testing protocol “using post-decarboxylation or other similarly reliable methods.”

“We need to have testing procedures in place,” he said. Coming up with reliable testing methods, he added, is “as complicated as you think it is.”

Speaking at the American Herbal Products Association’s Hemp-CBD Congress in Denver on August 16, USDA crops specialist William Richmond shared that the agency is working hard on hemp policy, but that testing protocol for THC is “as complicated as you think it is.”

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