1. (a) The department shall establish and enforce standards for laboratory-based testing of cannabis and manufactured cannabis products for content, contamination, and consistency; provided that in establishing these standards, the department shall:

   1. (1) Review and take guidance from the testing programs and standards utilized in other jurisdictions;
   2. (2) Consider the impact of the standards on the retail cost of the product to the qualifying patient;
   3. (3) Review and take guidance from the testing programs and standards for pesticides under the regulations of the United States Environmental Protection Agency;
   4. (4) Consider processes that may allow cannabis or manufactured cannabis products that fail testing standards to be remediated;
   5. (5) For the testing for microbiological impurities, consider the benefits of organically grown cannabis that features the use of bacteria in lieu of pesticides; and
   6. (6) Include permission for qualifying patients and primary caregivers to obtain testing services directly from certified laboratories on the island where the qualifying patient and primary caregiver reside.
2. (b) The department may certify laboratories that can test cannabis and manufactured cannabis products prior to the sale of cannabis and manufactured cannabis products.
3. (c) If a dispensary licensee obtains a laboratory result indicating that a sample of a batch of its cannabis or manufactured cannabis products does not meet the department's standards for patient safety, the dispensary licensee, at its own expense, may have the same sample or a different sample from the same batch retested by the same laboratory or a different laboratory. If a retest at a different laboratory yields a different result, the department shall determine which result controls whether the batch may be approved for sale or whether further testing shall be required.

[L 2015, c 241, pt of §2; am L 2017, c 41, §8 and c 170, §2; am L 2018, c 116, §16; am L 2020, c 38, §3]