Minnesota authorities are planning to evaluate the THC content of various CBD products. For doing this, they have decided upon a public testing laboratory. The lab in question is Midwest Regional Forensic Laboratory in Andover. This publicly funded lab is located north of Minneapolis and is going to test out the levels of THC present in CBD products that are sold by conventional retailers. The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune had reported that this is going to be the first state laboratory to conduct such type of testing.
Nothing has yet been decided on the manner of sample selection for testing purposes. As per Amanda Vukich, a forensic scientist working with the laboratory, experiments for testing the presence of THC in products have been conducted there till date. However, no test has been conducted over the level of THC present in any substance. This made it impossible to distinguish between illegal marijuana products and the legal hemp ones having low-THC content.
Amanda Vukich pointed out that, “It’s up to the state to prove that (a defendant) had a controlled substance and not make them prove it was just hemp, it wasn’t marijuana.” No information is available on whether the THC level of commercially grown hemp of Minnesota shall be tested by this lab or not.
