Ashlee & Jeremy Sackett

In 2013, Ashley Preece-Sackett and Jeremy Sackett co-founded Cascadia Labs in Oregon with the goal of providing accurate testing and safe products for the cannabis industry.

But the couple, who have horticulture and pharmacology backgrounds respectively, discovered a distinct lack of government oversight once they got into business. That lack of structure, they say, has led to industry-wide concerns over quality, and pesticides being found in commercial cannabis products.

It’s a problem they’ve been trying to fix ever since they first opened their doors.

“Unlike the rest of the industry, there hasn’t been third-party accreditation of cannabis labs,” Preece-Sackett says. “And there have been accusations of people shopping around to labs to get better results or to slip bad results through. We need that accreditation to ensure quality control and to stop that.”

The Oregon Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, which the couple lobbied for, will make Oregon the most regimented state in the country when it comes to cannabis analytics, Preece-Sackett says.

“And I imagine other states will follow,” she says.

Preece-Sackett is also a Clean Green inspector and is chair of the Portland chapter of Women Grow; Sackett is on the Oregon Rules Advisory Committee for the cannabis industry.