Health Canada has issued a recall notice for cannabis sold in BC due to potential microbial contamination.

The recall notice was published on April 24 for 28-gram SKUs of Full Sesh Purple Gelato Punch dried cannabis from Alberta’s Sirona Pharma Inc. The recall was first posted on the BC government’s cannabis website on April 22.

The recalled product was sold between September 18, 2023 and April 18, 2024. There were 1,200 units of recalled product sold under SKU 1062615, Lot PG23102. The product was packaged on 2023-09-07.

Health Canada reminds consumers that they can return the product to the retailer where the product was purchased. At the time the recall was issued, neither Health Canada nor Sirona Pharma Inc. had reported receiving any complaints or adverse reaction reports for the recalled cannabis product lot.

Health Canada says the product was discovered through their Cannabis Data Gathering Program, launched in 2023. As a result of that sampling, Health Canada determined that the affected product does not meet certain microbial contaminant limits for yeast, mould, and bacteria as specified by the Good Production Practices requirements of the Cannabis Regulations.

As part of that program, Health Canada’s Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch Cannabis Laboratory (ROEB) randomly purchases cannabis products from authorized retailers in Canada. 

This recall is the first Health Canada has reported as being triggered by this type of program. The majority of recalls for cannabis products in Canada since legalization have been due to labelling errors. 

In March, Sirona Pharma Inc. had another product recall, this time due to such a labelling error. The product labelled showed 1.4mg/g THC instead of the accurate amount of 14 mg/g.