Rowshan Reordan is the founder and CEO of Green Leaf Lab LLC. Founded in 2011, as the first accredited, woman-owned cannabis and hemp CBD analytical testing laboratory in the United States certified by the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and AOAC International.[1][2]
Rowshan was an early innovator in the cannabis analytical testing sector. In 2021 and 2022, her company was listed as one of the Top 50 Most Trustworthy Companies.[3] Recognized as a leader in the standardization of chemical lab testing of cannabis and CBD,[4] Reordan runs certified testing labs in the states of Oregon and California.[5]
Rowshan Reordan dropped out of high school at 15 and left home at 17 to travel throughout North and Central America, shaping her interest in justice through the use of the law.[6] She later earned a Juris Doctor from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2006. She also holds a Master's degree in political science with a focus on human rights from the same school.[7]
Reordan began to be interested medical and recreational cannabis testing was after seeing the struggles of a close friend living with HIV, who often used medical cannabis. Their death led her to wonder if medical cannabis products were safe and uncontaminated.[8] At that time, the industry lacked state or federal regulations to ensure the safety of cannabis as a consumed product. Reordan saw Colorado and Washington legalize recreational cannabis without product safety testing standards, leading her to open Green Leaf Lab in Oregon in 2011 as the first woman-owned analytical cannabis testing laboratory.[9] The lab focused on pesticides and mold in cannabis to ensure the product would be safe for consumers.[9][10]
Green Leaf Lab trademarked their "Cannalysis" process of analytic cannabis testing and employed trained chemists using standardized and peer reviewed analytic testing equipment to set new industry standards.[11][12]
In 2019, Green Leaf Lab filed a complaint ending in a legal battle that centered around the critical need to protect proprietary lab procedures and transparency in the emergent cannabis industry's regulatory standards, for which Reordan has been a leader. Her work in analytical chemical testing of cannabis potency and accusations of impropriety were dismissed in U.S. California Central District Court.[citation needed]
In 2013, Reordan was invited to join a subcommittee on testing medical marijuana for Oregon's House Bill 3460 to provide recommendations from the industry. In 2015, Reordan gave a statement before the Oregon Legislature outlining eight product safety and public health recommendations to better regulate the cannabis industry: