Aflatoxins in lab report - question

[Giant Robot]

Hi all -

I’m trying to understand how concerned I should be about a situation I ran into. I bought a 500mg high end full spectrum cart in my state from an extremely well regarded brand and from a well known “top 10” dispensary. In context, all “cannaisseur” stuff. All natural, organic Ethanol, nothing added, you know the drill. This particular brand/cart even got awards in my state. With the cart, you get the general breakdown so far as terps and THC (92.5%), etc. but when I got home, I googled around and was able to locate the full lab report.

Everything was above board - no pesticides, heavy metals, etc. but under mycotoxins, Aflatoxins was listed as 6ppb and subsequently passed because it’s under the FDA safe threshold of 20ppb.

Aflatoxins are the most dangerous mutagenic spore you can think of, leading to liver cancer, etc.

That said, should I be worried about finding “any” Aflatoxins in the first place, and refusing to use this cart, or is that overly neurotic?

I’m not a repeat customer of this particular dispensary and I don’t know if they would even entertain taking back a cart that has been certified safe anyway.

Am I worried about nothing?

Thanks -

GiantRobot

 

[Tranquility]

That said, should I be worried about finding “any” Aflatoxins in the first place, and refusing to use this cart, or is that overly neurotic?

Life is all about risk. You have a chance of finding aflatoxins in most foods and high doses can kill you. Low doses over a long period of time might too. But, the parts per billion you listed as FDA threshold is for the aflatoxin in food, not for aflatoxins in a cartridge that is about to be heated and intentionally inhaled.

For that, we don't have a safe threshold now--maybe never.

If I were a dispensary who sold a legal cart that passes regulatory requirements, I don't think I'd take it back because a user did not like the specific results on the testing. I might if they were a long-time customer who I know is going to spend lots through the years here, but, even then I might not.

 

[Giant Robot]

I take your point and thanks for the reply. That said, I think this community is here as a counter to the known health hazards of smoking so (theoretically) most of us are on here to find the healthiest (and most efficient) way to medicate and thus, I think this is good conversation to have.

Certainly, vaping aflatoxins IMHO seems to be worse than smoking a joint but I’m totally ignorant to what 6ppb means in the whole scheme of things and it still passed testing for being under 20 so I don’t know?

FWIW and for context, I was excited to try the full spectrum cart as I heard many reviews that have said the effect/taste is more like smoking a joint and that’s appealing to me.

Interestingly, I noticed that ALL of this brand’s full spectrum offerings had some small level of Aflatoxins (anywhere from 3-10ppb) whereas their “crystal clear” distillate alternatives had no discernible traces (LOQ) and that makes me wonder if that’s an artifact of concentrating the whole flower vs the refinements present in creating the pure distillate and then adding terps back in, etc. Or not.

At the end of the day, I’m chasing the holy grail of getting the most flavor and effect via vaping that would simulate the same experience of smoking a joint without the health issues. I looked everywhere on the net and it’s just hard to reconcile whether there is any “there” there when under 20ppb passes certification, and just not understanding what 6ppb means in terms of danger or benign impact.

Simply put, would people out there have any issue with vaping from this cart?

Cheers...

GiantRobot

 

[Tranquility]

Simply put, would people out there have any issue with vaping from this cart?

The dose you'd receive from vaping the aflatoxins will not be enough to kill you from acute effects.

In the long-term, people can only guess. My guess is that we are exposed to carcinogens all the time. Heck, sunlight could be considered a carcinogen. For me, I'd worry more about walking to my car without sunscreen on than I would be using a cartridge with that level of aflatoxin.