The Oregon Liquor Control Commission announced last week that multi-state testing entity EVIO Labs had surrendered two of its lab permits in Oregon.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0OLCC\u2019s<\/a> statement\u00a0on the action noted that EVIO Labs<\/a> entered a settlement to surrender two of its permits instead of going to hearing to plead their case.<\/p>\n According to the OLCC<\/a>, samples sent to labs are divided in half, with one half of the product tested and one retained in the event of the need to retest. Usually, there is no need to re-test, says the OLCC, so after about 40 days the retention samples are to be properly disposed of. That\u2019s where EVIO got into hot water.<\/p>\n \u201cThe licensee disposed of the retention samples by giving them to employees to take home for personal use, in violation of OLCC rules,\u201d read the state\u2019s synopsis of what happened.<\/p>\n The charges from the state broke down into various violations dating from January to December of 2017. The first violation was around the transporting or disposing of marijuana after testing, extracts left over in samples, and the way those products left the premise.<\/p>\n The next problem that arose for EVIO was the way things were tracked. The state says the laboratory intentionally failed to enter data into the METRC Cannabis Tracking System \u2014 which is supposed to fully and transparently account for all inventory on the premises\u00a0\u2014 when they failed to disclose it was transferring retention samples to its employees to take home.<\/p>\n The state also says due to the samples leaving, inventory wasn\u2019t properly reconciled on a daily basis at the close of business. They had been designating the samples as destroyed in the METRC system, which was obviously not the case.<\/p>\n In the terms of the agreement to surrender, the state noted the standard sanction for these kinds of violations was license cancellation, but they had already been surrendered pending full approval of the OLCC at its January meeting.<\/p>\n Chief Operating Officer Lori Glauser explained to Cannabis Now what happened in Oregon<\/a> in a phone interview following the OLCC announcement of the surrender. Glauser was accused by the OLCC, along with EVIO\u2019s Chief Scientific Officer Anthony Smith, of pressuring and encouraging employees to conceal the practice of taking home the samples.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2017, we had some employees that were taking waste product from the lab and taking it home for personal use,\u201d Glauser said. \u201dSo that\u2019s what happened. OLCC didn\u2019t like that obviously. They proceeded to submit some violations.\u201d<\/p>\n While all this was happening in EVIO\u2019s laboratories in the Oregon cities of Eugene and Bend, Glauser says EVIO was already re-evaluating the numbers available to them in the Oregon marketplace in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had decided to close those labs for a number of reasons, primarily economic,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had consolidated into Medford and Portland. When the violations came down, we had an option to go to [a] hearing and state our case, but what we decided what to do was say we\u2019re just going to surrender these licenses and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n Glauser thought the state\u2019s take was a bit harsh and one-sided, \u201cbut that said, we do admit to\u00a0 this happening and regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n EVIO has since established various new protocols so they don\u2019t have a repeat performance of what happened in Eugene and Bend.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as we realized what was going, and realized what we had to do, we went into updating procedures, updating training,\u201d she said. \u201cStaff was changed. Our management structure was changed. We implemented new systems, so we took every measure to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n Glauser says when they were the first contacted by the OLCC, they mentioned they may be moving on from the labs in those cities. The OLCC\u2019s decision ended up being a factor, but not the primary one.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were moving out anyway, and we chose to take that path in lieu of a hearing and negotiating fines,\u201d said Glauser.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you know where your cannabis gets tested?<\/p>\n The post Oregon Cannabis Lab Surrenders 2 Licenses to Regulators<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Oregon Liquor Control Commission announced last week that multi-state testing entity EVIO Labs had surrendered two of its lab permits in Oregon. The\u00a0OLCC\u2019s statement\u00a0on the action noted that EVIO Labs entered a settlement to surrender two of its permits instead of going to hearing to plead their case. AccordingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,3794,170,991,980,687,7244,185,2401],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32336,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32335\/revisions\/32336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Oregon Cannabis Lab Surrenders 2 Licenses to Regulators<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"