Corey Black, owner and founder of Earth Keeper Cannabis in Winthrop, holds marijuana Oct. 16 that was offered to her by a licensed grower. Tests paid for by Black found the cannabis to be contaminated. Such tests are not required, which officials say allows dangerous products to reach consumers in the medical marijuana market. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel file

AUGUSTA -- Maine doesn't require its medical cannabis be tested for mold, chemicals and other contaminants. A new bill seeks to change that.

Proposed by the Office of Cannabis Policy and sponsored by Rep. Marc Malon, D-Biddeford, L.D. 104 would hold Maine's recreational and medical markets to the same safety standards.

"The vast majority of medical cannabis facilities and caregivers are operating in good faith, but the fact that there is no mandatory testing in place for medical cannabis in Maine is, I think, a real problem for Maine consumers," Malon said.

Related Maine has no testing requirement for medical cannabis. Public health advocates want that to change.

Few states have different testing and tracking requirements for their medical and recreational markets as Maine does. Cannabis plants in the recreational market are tracked from seed-to-sale and products must pass safety and purity testing.

Maine's medical industry has no such requirements. Only two states, Maine and Arkansas, do not require chemical testing for medical cannabis. Only three states, Maine, Missouri and New Hampshire, lack seed-to-sale plant tracking.

Medical cannabis industry groups are pushing back against the bill, saying that requiring plant and product testing would set a greater financial burden on small-scale medical caregivers and may push many out of business.

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The Maine Cannabis Union, an industry advocacy group, opposes the bill. Board member Paul McCarrier said Maine's recreational testing regime is flawed and notes that lawmakers have repeatedly defeated similar attempts to require medical cannabis testing in in 2023, 2021 and 2018.

"This is a great example of state bureaucracy essentially just continuing to push the same agenda while ignoring that the Legislature has continually rejected this framework and the industry has continually rejected this framework," McCarrier said.

Cannabis plants in Maine's recreational market are tracked at all stages of growth from seed to sale. Products are tested for mold, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals and other contaminants before being sold. The state's Office of Cannabis Policy has issued three recalls to date of recreational cannabis for mold contamination.

Related Third recreational cannabis recall issued in as many months

McCarrier said the recalls demonstrate the testing regime's failures. Malon said the recalls are the system working as intended to keep tainted product off dispensary shelves.

In the state's medical market, plants and products are neither tracked nor tested unless a grower or dispensary owner chooses to do so voluntarily.

Malon argues that loose restrictions enable unscrupulous growers to sell tainted cannabis into the legal market without consumers ever knowing. McCarrier said Maine's medical industry is a free market where consumers can pick and choose where they purchase pot.

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"If they go to a place and that place does not have test results, they don't have to purchase it there; they can go to a place that does," McCarrier said.

Unlike most states, Maine's medical cannabis market has always outperformed its recreational counterpart, bringing in about $280 million in 2023. Partly because of the loose regulations, medical cannabis is often cheaper for Maine consumers than recreational.

Related Maine's medical cannabis market had its boom. Is it in a bust?

Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine is a nonprofit advocacy group representing medical cannabis patients, growers and manufacturers that has previously pushed back against proposals for stricter testing and tracking.

The organization did not respond to requests for comment. MMCM board chair Tammy Smith previously said that extending Maine's recreational guidelines to medical caregivers would "result in medicine being unaffordable for patients."

"We are opposed to the current mandatory testing requirements forced on the Adult Use program that are seriously flawed, overly burdensome, expensive and have been shown by the recent recalls by OCP, to not effectively protect the consumer from unsafe products entering the market," Smith said.

Paul McCarrier, a longtime advocate for medical marijuana pictured testifying in front of a legislative committee in 2017, said lawmakers should not consider new regulations that have been rejected in the recent past. "This is a great example of state bureaucracy essentially just continuing to push the same agenda while ignoring that the Legislature has continually rejected this framework and the industry has continually rejected this framework," McCarrier said.

L.D. 104 is a department bill submitted by Malon with OCP's support. John Hudak, OCP director and a medical cannabis patient, has supported expanding testing in the medical industry despite pushback from the Legislature and industry groups against past proposals.

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"If a business model is one in which producing clean cannabis is too costly, there's something wrong with the business model," Hudak said in 2023. "We're not going to focus on profits at the expense of patients' health."

Close to half of the products sold in Maine's medical cannabis market could be contaminated with pesticides, harmful microbes, yeast and mold, two 2023 studies found. Samples most commonly failed because of the presence of myclobutanil, a common fungicide also known as Eagle-20, that creates cyanide gas when ignited and inhaled.

McCarrier and the Maine Cannabis Union say many of the contaminants OCP tests for are largely harmless. Most dispensaries reject transactions from sketchy sellers, McCarrier said, and have formed communities among themselves where bad actors can be called out and effectively shunned.

"If you have a product that people don't want or a product that is tainted, you lose your customer base," he said. "If there was a public health crisis, we would see it by now."

Eagle-20 is among the chemicals most commonly found in police raids of Maine's illegal marijuana "grow houses" -- rural single-family homes converted into clandestine industrial-scale illegal cannabis farms, often by Chinese organized crime.

At least 120 alleged grow houses have received medical cannabis caregiver licenses to grow, transport and sell cannabis, a Morning Sentinel investigation of OCP records found in December.

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The OCP confirmed several licenses have been issued to illegal grow houses previously raided by police as illegal growers take advantage of Maine's loose cannabis regulations to transition from the black market to the medical market.

Related Illegal grow house operators and their tainted product take refuge in Maine's legal market

"OCP remains concerned about illicit actors and illicit behaviors taking refuge in the medical cannabis program," the agency's media relations director, Alexis Soucy, said last year. "A lot of the challenge comes from an outdated, piecemeal medical cannabis statute that needs significant structural reform."

Several strains from several alleged grow house owners have tested positive for dangerous amounts of toxic insecticides and fertilizers. Black market Chinese pesticides are often found inside the home and cannot be detected by standard chemical testing. Black mold infestations often fill the homes due to the high temperatures and humidity needed to efficiently grow cannabis.

Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine has previously encouraged illegal growers to receive legal caregiver licenses so that the organization can teach them "best practices" to grow cannabis safely.

A raid last year revealed what officials say was an illegal cannabis growing operation at a single-family house at 368 West Ridge Road in Cornville, top. The lower photo, taken by the Somerset County Sheriff's Office, shows the house's interior. Marijuana is moving from illegal grow sites into the medical market, which officials say is a health concern for consumers. Top photo by Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

"We, as a trade organization, welcome new caregivers to the industry; those emerging from the illicit market are no exception," Smith said. "The association will provide them with the same guidance for the use of best practices, cultivation of clean, safe medicine and adherence to rules and regulations."

Dispensary owners are reporting an uptick in suspected grow house owners trying to sell cannabis for cash, transactions that are entirely legal under Maine's regulatory framework. Malon said the Sentinel's investigation was a factor in him sponsoring the bill.

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"Whether it's grown illegally in one of those disgusting grow houses or it's something that was grown in good faith, having a testing protocol in place helps add an extra layer of protection to make sure that the product is clean when its on the shelves or being smoked," Malon said.

It is not clear from the bill's text if cannabis growers or dispensaries will bear the cost of cannabis testing, which can be several hundred dollars per test. Malon said he expects the intricacies to be hashed out during the legislative session.

Related Tainted grow house weed is being shopped to Maine dispensaries, with little to stop it from reaching consumers

If growers end up footing the bill, industry advocates say that model would put many medical caregivers out of business.

"They impose so many unreasonable and impractical regulations upon the industry, which make it so the operating costs are so high," McCarrier said. "We don't want to impose a flawed program upon another sector of the industry."

By virtue of medical cannabis being a prescribed medicine, however, Malon argues it should be subject to more stringent safety and purity testing.

"I believe that consumers should be able to have the same confidence in product that they are purchasing for medicinal usage as they would products for recreational usage," Malon said. "If anything, I think it's more crucial."

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