One in five batches of marijuana has failed laboratory testing since new state safety requirements kicked in July 1, according to data from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control.

Failures have been triggered by inaccurate labeling or contamination from pesticides, bacteria or processing chemicals.

Those testing requirements and results have left some retailers with severely limited inventory over the past few weeks, as cultivators and product manufacturers scramble to get compliant products to market.

There was a big gap at the beginning of the month with the supply of marijuana buds in particular, according to Nick Rinella, chief operating officer of Verdant Distribution, a Long Beach-based independent cannabis distributor.

The new testing requirements have also created backlogs at busy labs.

California launched legal recreational marijuana sales and imposed new rules for the cannabis industry on New Years Day. But state regulators gave businesses a six-month grace period to comply with some rules, including a requirement that they could only sell products that had been tested for safety by a licensed lab.

That grace period ended July 1, and the state says since then labs have tested 5,268 batches of marijuana, about 20 percent of which failed to meet state standards.

See the original article at The OCR