Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jun 2014
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Copyright: 2014 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

WHY MEDICAL MARIJUANA TESTING IS BIG BUSINESS IN MICHIGAN

Putting Pot to the Test.

The managers at Iron Laboratories LLC seemed a bit anxious when I 
visited their facility on Maple Road in Walled Lake. They're wary of 
how they're portrayed in the media.

"We wouldn't have done this one year ago," says CEO Robert Teitel. 
"Now it's time."

That wariness comes from the fact that their business is testing 
medical marijuana. Marijuana is, shall we say, a testy business in 
Michigan right now. Since the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA) 
was passed in 2008, marijuana businesses have often been on shaky 
ground due to continuing attitudes against them. The legislation has 
been interpreted unevenly by various local governments and law 
enforcement agencies. There are places, such as Washtenaw County, 
that have taken a gentler attitude toward what will be tolerated, and 
other places, such as Oakland County, that have taken a tougher stance.

Iron Laboratories is located in Oakland County, so the founding 
partners, Teitel and CFO Howard Lutz, are understandably trying to 
toe the line and do things in a manner that won't cause trouble. They 
seem very concerned that things are done correctly when it comes to 
medical marijuana. As one faction of medical marijuana advocates 
says, if it's going to be medical, let's make it medical. That means 
marijuana free of pesticides, fungi, and other contaminants. It also 
means knowing the levels of cannabinoids such as THC and CBD in any 
product, and being consistent with those levels.

That's where Iron Labs fits in. They're concerned with the 
credibility of the industry and seem to have built a wall between 
themselves and anything to do with promoting recreational use.

"We want to fill in the gaps between what is known and what is myth," 
says Lutz. "Since Sanjay Gupta said that CBD is helping people, it 
has exploded. Parents of sick children are calling, saying they got 
something that's supposed to have CBD and they want to verify that 
it's actually what they've been told."

That's one of the reasons that "it's time" for them to be more 
public. There are people peddling what they call high-CBD, 
non-psychotropic hemp, but in a sometimes-underground industry, 
nobody knows for sure what they might be getting. And some people are 
making claims that just aren't true.

"Some parents of sick children have expectations that aren't going to 
ever be met," Teitel says.

Iron Labs has been in business three years under fluctuating legal 
conditions as various legal rulings redefine the playing field. Not 
that they've been hiding. They depend on the public in order to do 
business, with some 600 clients, including individuals, caretakers, 
compassion clubs, and other places that supply medical marijuana to 
patients. It's a membership organization with a $175 lifetime 
membership fee. That fee includes two sample tests; further tests 
have a lower additional charge. The membership model is what most 
organizations doing business with medical marijuana in Michigan follow.

Iron Labs makes no claim about the efficacy of medical marijuana - 
"We're not doctors," says Lutz - but they want to deliver accurate 
results to caregivers and patients seeking information about what 
they have. They test buds, edibles, liquids, infused products, pretty 
much every method people use to deliver an effective dose of 
medication. It takes up to a gram of material to get an accurate test.

It can be very important when it comes to edibles and infused 
products. There have been cases in Michigan in which patients were 
charged with possession of more than the legal amount of marijuana 
because the total weight of their brownies, cookies, etc., exceeded 
the limit. Law enforcement has even claimed that they can't tell how 
much plant material or THC is in it.

"Of course we can," Lutz says. Iron Labs can indeed test and provide 
documentation of those levels.

Marijuana, of course, does have medical uses. Even in Colorado, where 
recreational use became legal on Jan. 1, the sale of medical 
marijuana has so far outpaced that of recreational, and "marijuana 
refugees" have moved to the state in order to have access to it.

Nationally, medical marijuana is big business, and the guys at Iron 
Labs have even considered adding locations in other states.

They're businessmen, although the five folks who do the actual 
analysis of materials are chemists and biologists. Each of them is 
also a legal caretaker or patient. Teitel and Lutz, who have been 
friends since childhood, speak in terms of being employers and 
stopping the brain drain of young educated people from the state. 
They say they get resumes from new college grads all the time.

The science and technical staff does have a just-out-of-college look 
- - they're young, a couple of them sporting dreadlocks and tats as 
they quietly go about their liquid and gas chromatography or other 
analysis on expensive lab equipment.

Nobody here is taking a big draw on a blunt and declaring it "good 
shit." And this business has no interest in cultivation or 
distribution of the product. Even the name of the company was chosen 
to avoid interpretation of any kind of stoner image. The name "Iron" 
is to imply that you get ironclad results.

Lutz used to work for the Lutz News Company, a newspaper distribution 
business started by his grandfather in 1937. After 71 years, Lutz 
shut down in 2008 due to the shrinking industry. He had a 
distribution relationship with Metro Times in the 1990s, when it was 
sold in Flint. But he still has that urge to employ family. His son, 
a biochemistry student at Michigan State University, also works at Iron Labs.

As the public becomes more knowledgeable about marijuana, the folks 
at Iron Labs want to be part of meeting the challenge. They even 
provide terpene profiles of bud samples. Terpenes give the odor and 
some taste to marijuana and contribute to the overall effect. 
Terpenes put the lemon in Lemon Diesel and the strawberry in 
Strawberry Cough. Some repel fungus or insects. Some terpenes even 
dilate capillaries in the lungs, helping the THC to enter the bloodstream.

The marijuana world is changing fast as we learn more about what's in 
it and how it affects us. Iron Labs is trying to help sort out what's 
in your medical product, and the people there hope their results are 
indeed ironclad.

Medical marijuana got another boost last week when the U.S. House of 
Representatives voted to block the Department of Justice and the Drug 
Enforcement Administration from using taxpayer funds to go after 
medical marijuana operations that are legal under state law. It's not 
a momentous occasion, but it is symbolically important and it does 
make a difference. The funding amendment still has to go to the 
Senate, and it's not clear how the agencies will interpret that. 
Still, Congress has never gone this far.

In Michigan, state Attorney General Bill Schuette has operated from 
the position that, despite the MMMA, marijuana is still illegal under 
federal law. He's gone so far as threatening to charge law 
enforcement officers with delivery of drugs if they return 
confiscated marijuana to certified patients and caregivers, as 
they're instructed to do under the MMMA.

Also, many law enforcement raids on medical marijuana facilities have 
had the veneer of federal enforcement because one federal agent is 
present or a state policeman gets temporarily sworn in as a federal 
officer. I guess that can still happen, but it shows that the 
foundation of Schuette's position is becoming less tenable.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom