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The 'black market' began self-regulating against the use of pesticides back in 2016/2017 before any regulation kicked in. Consumers became aware that pesticides
by cannaceo 7y ago
The 'black market' began self-regulating against the use of pesticides back in 2016/2017 before any regulation kicked in. Consumers became aware that pesticides were present in their vape cartridges and retailers started demanding lab results. After being conned a few times the more responsible retailers started randomly testing products on their shelves for pesticides and dropping vendors who tested positive. By mid-2017 it was very difficult to sell products that were testing positive for pesticides in to retailers in northern california. In southern california it was a different story...but the market was beginning to self-regulate. It just took time for cultivators to learn IPM strategies and respond to market demand. Aside from cultivators many manufacturers started to perform large scale chromatography and liquid-liquid extraction to remediate oil contaminated with pesticides...all without government intervention.
With legalization they've banned certain pesticides but allowed others. Neem oil and sulfur are very commonly used as part of an integrated pest management strategy in the licensed market. I can tell you I do not feel comfortable inhaling neem oil and personally think the quality of oil in 2017 was better in the black market than what is available today.
- ryanmarsh 7y agoYou seem to know a lot about this industry. Do you work in it? What else can you tell us?
- ineedasername 7y agoYour argument of self-regulation and lack of government intervention is pretty well undermined by the current situation of hundreds sick and a dozen deaths in a period of months. Sure, the market may correct, but the damage done before that isn't fixed. As for things like neem oil etc., perhaps the current regulations are insufficient, doesn't mean they should be done away with all together. Also, regulation doesn't automatically stop market competition: If the market has corrected the use of pesticides in the past, there's no reason competitors couldn't do so again through market forces above & beyond what the regulations require. Heck, it happens all of the time. The FDA has minimum guidelines for meat grading, but there's plenty of competition on quality, e.g., Angus beef, that is far above the minimum grades required for human consumption. Regulation sets a baseline minimum, not a maximum, and there's an endless number of items that compete on quality much higher than the baseline.
- whatshisface 7y ago>Sure, the market may correct, but the damage done before that isn't fixed. To be fair, it's not like regulation can cure those people either.
- ineedasername 7y agoNo, it could prevent future incidents. The market can only respond to them. Proactive vs. reactive.
- whatshisface 7y agoRight, but so could a market self-correction. They're both delayed remedies.
- ineedasername 7y agoMarket correction doesn't solve future issues, just the specific one at hand. Regulation sets a baseline so that problems below that baseline of quality are much less likely to crop up.
- whatshisface 7y agoYou can't regulate against scams that haven't been anticipated yet any more than the market can correct for them. Both democratic regulations and market correction depend on the same thing, which is the population's awareness of a problem, so one can't possibly be more vigilant than the other.
- ineedasername 7y agogreat, so lets use both: regulation to set the baseline, markets to take care of issues that arise above or outside of that baseline.
- deleted 7y ago
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y agoThanks for your ever poignant comments on cannabis related items on HN :D.