More than 300,000 medical marijuana customers and dispensaries were told Friday about tainted cannabis from an Edmond company, the state’s first recall issued by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
The products in a batch from manufacturer Moon Mix LLC tested for higher-than-allowed amounts of pesticide in vape cartridges and mints, officials said. About 150 products were involved.
“We request that you immediately examine your inventory to identify any products associated with Batch 158 and ensure such products are not sold to consumers,” said an email to dispensaries. “If you have further distributed this product, please identify your customers and notify them of this product recall and your recall procedures.”
A representative of Moon Mix did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday morning.
Concerns were raised in early March about the levels of salmonella and staphylococcus in some medical marijuana test batches during a quarterly meeting of the authority’s food safety standards board. Some of it was detected in the marijuana flower after it had been processed, indicating likely exposure toward the end of the manufacturing chain.
“A lot of salmonella. It was shocking,” said Hal Purdy, owner of Pure Labs in Oklahoma City. “We’ll take it to a buddy lab and let them run it too and they find it too.”
The marijuana authority approved the first licenses for testing labs in January and there are now 18 licensed labs across the state. All cannabis products were required to undergo testing in licensed labs by April 1, although that deadline was pushed back to July 1 after complications arose amid the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Senate was expected to vote Friday on an omnibus bill making some changes to the state’s medical marijuana law. Among the changes in House Bill 3228, by Rep. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, is the addition of home delivery of medical marijuana. That would only come after the state’s seed-to-sale tracking system goes into place later this year.
More than 282,000 Oklahomans had medical marijuana cards as of May 1, according to data from the authority. Voters legalized medical marijuana after approving State Question 788 in June 2018.