What Is “A True Dose”?

Merril Gilbert, founder and CEO of TraceTrust, explains "A True Dose" and what it means for third-party certification of cannabis-infused edibles.

Merril Gilbert, founder and CEO of TraceTrust: So, right now other than the United States Hemp Authority, which was introduced at Expo West in March, there is no independent third-party certification program specific to cannabis-and hemp-derived products. And so that’s really where–as I said–we have found that we needed to start moving that conversation and leading a universal way beyond ISO, ahead of FDA, because we really have to start setting a standard and it really needs to happen as an ecosystem. So, when we wrote this, we really looked at it based in the same principle, a certified organic, or NSF or any of the others. It’s the same criteria. When we look at the full lifecycle, obviously, there’s a very high level of IP protection and confidentiality with any manufacturer that we work with but really important, the retailers are really looking to this to drive them to understand what it is. And so, we look at their formulations, we would look to see that they have good manufacturing processes in place. We look to see that they have verifiable supply chain and we look at the entire lifecycle. So, right now regulartory is very focused on the plant and the oils and extracts and specific. They’re not looking at that essential oil that’s been added to that product that is coming, and that’s where your traduce metals and your impurities are coming from.

And so, we look at that: we look at the label. What are the claims that they are making, how easy is it to understand what a dose is and, when you open it up, how is it for you to understand how to administer that. And then that is what we have the independent lab secure and that’s what we have them learn the standard against. And so, we’re looking for the homogeny of that product.