Two well-built young men enter the outlet and proceed to a backroom carrying duffel bags. The bags are opened to reveal freezer-size plastic resealable packaging containing carefully weighed pounds of trimmed cannabis buds. A price is negotiated, wads of cash are exchanged, and the men leave with empty duffels. This is the dispensary supply chain.

Many growers of dispensary cannabis care deeply about their product. They use environmental monitoring sensors, implement detailed operating procedures, and abstain from chemical pesticides. Their product is then placed on shelves where it is indiscernible from competitors who have sprayed Windex on plants to kill mites. The current lack of quality assurance standards incentivizes black market profiteers to cut corners.

Randomized tests of street-sold marijuana suggest that as much as 40 per cent contains levels of mould toxic to humans. The ugliest test results include bifenthrin, a toxic pesticide. At one dispensary in California, a sample found concentrations of bifenthrin 1,600 times the safe and legal limit for human consumption. This is the unspoken dark side of laissez-faire growing.

Despite lack of regulation, Vancouver’s marijuana retail locations have flourished over recent months. The more than 80 now open in metro Vancouver have grown from just six in two years. This explosion of the nascent retail marijuana space has been unfettered by the burdens of business licenses, operational standard, or regulatory oversight. The balmy spring for this open market experiment is about to change.

In a Policy Health Report dated April 21, it was recommended to Vancouver City Council that retail marijuana dealers be regulated to a new set of standards. The city council report recommends a host of obligations for dispensaries, including a $30,000 licensing fee. Some pundits speculate that this alone could be enough to axe two-thirds of the existing outlets.

Zoning restrictions, setbacks, and background checks appear to be imminent realities for the pot-slinging storefronts. Edible cannabis is also on the chopping block, with all food products except infused cooking oil being excluded from the proposed regulations.

These restrictions will likely thin the ranks to only the most business-savvy operators in the dispensary mix. The question remains: What about the supply chain?

Today, there is no legal framework that permits a grower to supply dispensaries. Illegal trade is the only channel for shops moving pounds of cannabis per day. The recommended regulations do not yet address this unignorable issue.

The only logical first step to a defensible supply chain is retailers and regulators that both embrace a quality assurance standard. Without clearly labelled potency, microbial content, and absence of pesticides; cannabis buyers in Vancouver will still ultimately be buying whiskey from a bathtub.

Dan Sutton is a Partner at Tantalus Labs, a cultivator of sungrown medical cannabis located in Vancouver. Tantalus was founded in 2012, and operates North America’s first cannabis tailored industrial greenhouse and testing lab.