From where I sit, this is the work that should have been done years ago. We’re just the ones who finally built the place to do it.
This week I incorporated the Cannabis Device Safety Institute — CDSI for short. It’s a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the first independent laboratory and standards body dedicated to the safety of cannabis consumption hardware. Not the flower, not the concentrate — the device itself. Vaporizers, concentrate atomizers, glass ovens, ceramic donut heaters, the materials inside them.
The site is up at cdsi.click. I want to walk through why it exists and what it’s trying to be.
The gap nobody else is filling
Here’s the thing that’s been bugging me for years. There is no federal or state safety standard for the devices Americans use to consume cannabis concentrates. The FDA disclaims jurisdiction. State cannabis bureaus regulate the concentrate, not the cartridge. UL 8139 is electrical safety only — it doesn’t cover off-gas chemistry, materials migration, any of the stuff that actually matters when you’re heating a heavy metal coil and inhaling whatever comes off it.
Industry self-regulation has produced no public registry of failed tests. Hardware is sold on marketing claims alone. Fifteen years into the modern cannabis hardware industry, that’s still where we are.
I’ve been building this hardware long enough to know that the people making it — including me — need somebody outside our companies to test it. Not a marketing certification. Not a logo you pay for. An actual independent lab with published methodology, public test reports regardless of outcome, and a certification mark that means something because the protocol behind it is replicable and open.
The 2016 test that should have started something
Back in 2016, I had a nagging feeling about what the heat was actually doing to the materials we were putting inside our devices at Divine Tribe. Nobody — not the industry, not the regulators, not any university — was going to pay to find out. So I paid for it myself.
I sent a Divine Tribe V3 over to ALS Environmental in Simi Valley, California. They’re NELAP / DoD-ELAP accredited. Service request P1605022, dated November 30, 2016. The first independent off-gas analysis ever conducted on a cannabis concentrate vaporizer.
That report sat there. Nothing happened. Eight years later, I’m still waiting for the rest of the industry — or any regulator — to catch up. CDSI exists to make that kind of testing routine instead of a one-off curiosity.
How it’s structured
This is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit parent with a wholly-owned testing services LLC subsidiary. The nonprofit holds the mission, governance, methodology, and certification mark. The LLC does fee-for-service testing for manufacturers, and revenue flows up to the parent. Pay the lab, not pay to pass. Every report public regardless of result. Every conflict of interest disclosed on every cover page.
The funding rule is simple: no single revenue stream may exceed 50% of operating budget. Vendor testing fees, foundation grants, federal research awards (post-Schedule III rescheduling that’s coming) — three streams, balanced. That’s how you keep a standards body from becoming a marketing arm of the people who pay it the most.
Headquartered in Arcata, California, in formal partnership with Cal Poly Humboldt’s Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR). The MOU is being prepared. CDSI stays structurally independent — we’re a partner, not a department of any university.
What CDSI is not
It’s not a trade association. It’s not a lobbying organization. It’s not a marketing certifier. It’s not a department of any university. It’s not a Divine Tribe subsidiary — the Institute is structurally independent of every party whose products it tests, including mine.
What we want
Manufacturers committed to open testing. Cannabis researchers seeking industry-side data they can trust. Foundations funding harm reduction and consumer safety. Regulators looking for a technical reference body they can cite. Consumer advocates who want a voting seat on a real standards organization.
I could be wrong about how fast any of this moves. With Schedule III rescheduling, federal research money is finally going to open up — and somebody’s gotta be standing at the door when it does. I want there to be a place that’s already done the work, that’s run by builders, not lawyers, so the testing actually means something.
If you’re any of the people I just listed, the contact info is on the site at cdsi.click. Founder direct, no gatekeepers.
Builders, not lawyers. Pay the lab, not pay to pass.