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Members at this year’s annual meeting of the National Conference of Weights and Measures (NCWM) are set to vote this week on a proposal concerning acceptable moisture loss in cannabis plant material, a limit meant to protect patients and consumers from buying packages that weigh less than advertised. If the item it approved, it will be added to a federal standards handbook.
The proposal would provide national guidance to both hemp and marijuana markets despite marijuana remaining illegal at the federal level.
Set for a vote at NCWM’s annual meeting on Wednesday, the plan would establish a 3 percent tolerance limit for moisture in cannabis, allowing the net weight of cannabis packages to fall slightly as the result of moisture loss.
The 3 percent threshold is similar to that for other products, like flour or dry pasta, though the cannabis proposal would allow only moisture loss, not absorption of moisture that would increase net weight.
“As written, there would be no limit to going over the declared weight of the package,” Charlie Rutherford, co-chair of NCWM’s Cannabis Task Group, told Marijuana Moment in an email.
The proposal is aimed at accounting for moisture loss that occurs after marijuana and hemp material is harvested. If it passes at this week’s meeting, the guidance would be published in January in a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) handbook on packaged goods.
“In the retail Cannabis trade, insufficient attention and guidance is given to moisture migration in or out of some Cannabis packaging,” the item on the NCWM agenda says, “and as a result, the contents of some Cannabis flower packaging have been found to be underweight, resulting in the patient/consumer paying for weight they are not actually receiving.”
In Oregon, for example, “underweight complaints are the #1 consumer complaint,” according to the agenda’s original justification for the proposal. “For the fairness and safety of Cannabis consumers,” it says, a weight variance “based on enforcement of acceptable moisture ranges needs to be established.”
National Conference on Weights and Measures
The 3 percent number is not only consistent with moisture variances that apply to other materials but also aligns with California rules, the document says.
“Some Cannabis is very susceptible to environmental conditions easily losing or gaining moisture with consequences impacting net quantity, degredation of active cannabinoids, and/or microbial proliferation depending on the situation,” the proposal says. “These are just some of the reasons there are many concerns and uncertainty surrounding the moisture allowance of Cannabis.”
The 3 percent variance allowance—which Rutherford said is better thought of as an “established gray area” than a limit—”isn’t a free pass to package flower at 97.1% of the declared weight,” he said.
CBWM “expects zero deviation on weight,” he said, adding: “The ‘allowance’ or ‘gray area’ is taken in context during the package inspection. For instance, for a package inspected 2 weeks after packaging, losing a couple % in weight while on the shelf could be viewed as allowable. On the other hand, if a package is a couple % low moments after packaging, it would warrant further investigation. If a package is outside the allowance/gray, then a total stop sale could happen.”
NIST for its part, said in an executive summary about the change that it’s “not opposed to this item however there are some significant issues that need to be addressed before this item is ready for adoption.”
Noting comments from Walter Brent Wilson, a NIST research scientist who often handles cannabis issues, the agency encouraged a broader market sample of cannabis products over a more extended study period. The study cited by CBWM, Wilson said, covered a 12-week period, but “cannabis can be stored for significantly longer periods of time prior to sale.”
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