The Mississippi State Department of Health fined cannabis testing company Rapid Analytics, LLC $1 million for 200 violations of various cannabis regulations.
The Health Department issued a notice of intent to revoke the license for Rapid's license on February 21, 2024. The agency ordered the company to stop testing medical marijuana products in December 2023. The suspension had a severe impact on many dispensaries as they could not sell any products tested by Rapid.
Several of the findings stated in the notice are:
* Inaccurate THC reporting
* Rapid used a testing method that was unable to detect certain pesticides
* "Numerous compliance sample results were reported as passing without being tested"
* Rapid "manipulated testing" so failed products could pass.
* No quality assurance program was developed.
* The company "manipulated sample injection volumes" to get desired results.
* Did not document each testing facility employee met employee qualifications.
The Health Department said Rapid Analytics demonstrated an "indifference" to the safety of medical marijuana patients.
The license will be revoked after March 13 if Rapid does not appeal the revocation. Rapid must pay the $1 million fine within 30 days unless the appeal is filed.
Kingfish note: It's a good thing yours truly filed a public records request for the notice. Compare the notice to the MSDH press release:
The Mississippi State Department of Health, through the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Program (MMCP), announced its intent to revoke the license of Rapid Analytics, LLC, a medical cannabis testing facility. This decision follows an investigation conducted between December 21, 2023, and February 9, 2024, revealing significant deviations from regulatory standards and approved procedures.
Medical cannabis testing is critical to ensuring product safety for patients, and Rapid Analytics' disregard for regulatory compliance poses a threat to public health and welfare. As such, MSDH has determined to revoke the establishment's license effective March 13, 2024.
Rapid Analytics, LLC has the right to appeal this decision within twenty days. Failure to appeal will result in the revocation of the license.
26 comments:
Standing by for twelve posts from curbside medical experts who will claim:
1) "Patients"? HA!
2) I smell users everywhere I go.
3) There is no such thing as safe marywanner.
4) This is all just a trick to get recreational merrywanah on our street.
5) My cousin in Denver says everybody is stoned, even the bankers and school teachers.
6) Our elected officials are stuffing their pockets and profiting from this dangerous drug. Mark my word.
In 3..2..1 (oops, did I post this too late already?)
That money is already earmarked for new company SUVs, trips to conventions (1st class tickets of course), remodeled offices, artwork, covered parking...
Whatever they were marketing was no doubt safer than the shit we've been buying on the street for sixty years.
If'n the Cowboy Hat had been over the program, he woulda dispatched a herd of Claiborne County hogs to eat it.
@11:14 AM - You beat us to it, but you left out "in 3, 2, 1..." and a huge omission is that you didn't mention "Reefer Madness." Lost opportunities.
Good luck collecting those fines, but the bureaucrats are drooling over that potentially windfall. Convention in Paris?
The concept of legalizing a recreational drug (though it has medicinal purposes) is fraught with peril. It's another example of money luring politicians.
@11.14's reference to Denver is an example of over-prescribed dope.
Only 4 comments...mainly because 11:14 took all the comments that get repeated a million times each.
That's one heck of a fine, but I agree with it. If they were suppose to be ensuring that the product was safe and within the legal limits, that's what they should have been doing. "unable to detect certain pesticides" Damn. So much for the cancer patient and glaucoma patient.
Thanks for doing the public records request, Kingfish.
Gosh, it sure looks like Rapid Analytic has real bad luck to be accused of committing exactly 200 violations at $5,000 per.
Or, could it be that the $1,000,000 penalty is just an opening bid?
Tater was just saying Mississippi is open for business.
First, they start putting less chips in the bag, and now this?!! Why can't those dudes just leave us stoners alone?
I don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’ and I ain’t no user. But if we’re talkin’ about detecting Real Kill, cow manure, or paraquat in microscopic doses, then I smell a rat.
As far as unqualified hired help, no real chemist would work in a lab with that dubious intensity.
Marijuana people can’t do simple tasks. Cheat on their work. Not do their work. Ect Ect. SHOCKING
Good thing they are an LLC or someone would be on the hook for a bunch of money. Not sure what the assets are/were to set up an analytics' lab but that's about all the Health Department will get. (DISCLAIMER: not an attorney)
The public has to be assured the product is safe AND effective. Good job MSDH (and Kingfish).
Don't give the $1M to the politicions. give it to the patients who wasted their money and endangered their health on dangerous worthless Missisippi
Hadacol.
It's going to be ALWAYS like this-
Apparently their lab techs thought that the testing consisted of firing up a reefer and puffing away.
"Convention in Paris?" March 7, 2024 at 11:41 AM
Put away the Wal-Mart wine, toodlum. The Paris convention is on the city of Jacktown, not the state Health Department.
Bankruptcy looms if not already filed. No way the woman charged can cough up a mil. Bankruptcy and disappearance with the entire stash of product unapproved by the health department gurus.
This is Mississippi being Mississippi. "They" sent a broadside into this budding company meant to cripple it. But the main reason was to send any other large size dispensary ideas in Mississippi to GO ELSEWHERE.
It's the Mississippi Way.
Dude, it’s just a little weed. We don’t need no standards and limitations. You’re going to ruin it for everybody.
Laboratory analysis is a highly technical business that requires education, skill, rigor, a ton of expensive equipment, and supplies. Cutting corners on any of those components will, invevitably, compromise the data. Too often, investors or lab managers think they see a cash cow, skimp on the necessary components, and end up in a situation where the only way they can keep the money flowing is to compromise the data. Pesticide analysis is particularly tricky and can't be trusted to inexperienced chemists. Once the data are compromised, trust in the lab disentigrates and no one associated with the operation is ever really trusted again.
They are lucky that they are only getting fined. At least one Jackson-area lab owner (Tennie White) was convicted of a crime in 2013 for falsifying lab data.
Without knowing what's going on with the alleged deficencies allegedly discovered at a certain Mississippi medical marijuana testing facility here's a little surprise in the details.
What are the odds that the only other state licensed medical marijuana testing facility in Mississippi gets the job of analyzing the work of it's former competitor on the state's dime?
Nah, that's not the real 'what are the odds' part.
The real 'what are the odds' part would be that Stacey Pickering is the CEO of the only other state licensed medical marijuana testing facility that allegedly has been hired by the state to test the work of it's former competitor.
So what, 11:23? Really...So what?
@6:41pm
Get real, as was said - it's Mississippi being Mississippi - corrupt to the bone.
I mean, smoking stuff is bad for you? Who knew?
Being stoned/impaired/drunk/high affects your brain? How does that work? These poor innocent "patients" I smell driving by at 100 mph with AR pistols and no insurance deserve better.
After all, drugs and booze are always good and stoopid Babtists and taxpayers always say it's bad. War on Drugs Bad. NFL booze brain damage good. Blather Dense Repeat submissive consumers.
Their lobbyists will be all over this. And we'll pay the medical damage bills forever.
We are already at 47% not paying FIT. How much more can we pay for folks to lay about and be stoned or drunk?
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