California’s losing quest for clean weed – Los Angeles Times

California’s losing quest for clean weed  Los Angeles Times

Two years after The Times found that cannabis sold at California dispensaries contained alarming levels of pesticides, the safety of the state's legal weed remains a crapshoot, as government regulators fail to keep up with an ever-evolving slate of hazardous chemicals or crack down on the growers using them. A new round of tests commissioned by The Times shows that even as many major cannabis brands have cleaned up their products, others are using pesticides off the state’s radar. Brands, including Stiiizy and West Coast Cure, that were contaminated two years ago came up largely clean in the latest testing — a change that industry leaders attribute to pressure from consumers outraged by The Times’ 2024 reporting.

But three other brands, all from the same manufacturer, contained significant quantities of a pesticide, pymetrozine, that was widespread in the 2024 testing. And previously unseen chemicals hazardous to human health were detected in a quarter of the 49 inhalable products tested by The Times. One product contained the soil fungicide etridiazole, a likely carcinogen not widely known to cannabis safety professionals, in amounts 125 times higher than what would trigger safety testing under federal tobacco standards. About 17% of Americans smoke cannabis products, including nearly a quarter of people under age 29, according to an August Gallup poll. When cannabis is inhaled