Pot Laced with Pesticides Forces States to Act as EPA Stays Away

Whenever Josh Wurzer buys legal California pot, he makes certain it was grown without pesticides.

That’s because Wurzer, as president of cannabis-testing company SC Labs, knows how prevalent the use of health-threatening chemicals are in an industry that until recently operated mostly in the shadows. Three to four of every 10 samples that SC tests reveal the presence of pesticides that shouldn’t be used on cannabis, including one that turns into a poisonous gas when ignited, he said.

“I don’t want some farmer with no one looking over their shoulder spraying away all kinds of pesticides that they ...