Testing

A recent secret shopper program by New Jersey-based Safe Leaf Society found through lab testing that 28% of the cannabis pre-rolls in the state exceeded regulatory microbial limits.

The Missouri cannabis company that had its license revoked following the recall of 63,000 products it manufactured has lost its appeal to reinstate its license.

Massachusetts cannabis testing lab MCR Labs is suing eight rival testing labs, claiming they are inflating THC levels and ignoring “safety fails” in contamination tests.

Cannabis regulators in Massachusetts warned that some products sold in the state may have exceeded state-mandated levels of yeast, mold, and coliforms.

A Maine proposal would require medical cannabis products to undergo rigorous testing for potency and contaminants, like in the state’s adult-use system.

The University of Illinois Chicago Analytical Forensic Testing Laboratory is accused of providing law enforcement with flawed test results in potentially hundreds of DUI cases.

Officials with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority are opening a testing lab that will perform its own testing of medical cannabis products, double-checking the results from the state’s commercial testers.

USDA officials last week delayed the enforcement of a rule requiring consumer hemp products to be tested by labs registered with the DEA; it’s the third year in a row that officials have delayed enforcing the rule.

Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) recently recalled flower products from a state-licensed cultivator due to mold and bacteria contamination.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) this week announced the first company to receive a medical cannabis business license is KCA Labs, a Nicholasville-based testing facility that already conducts tests on hemp products.

A former California cannabis official has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired after exposing widespread lab fraud and regulatory inaction.

The National Institutes of Standards and Technology is selling reference materials to help testing labs and law enforcement agencies accurately measure key components in cannabis products and better distinguish between hemp and THC-rich cannabis products.

California this week ordered product recalls for five licensed cannabis products including four vape pens and a vape cartridge due to contamination with chlorfenapyr, which is a banned pesticide.

An independent investigation has revealed widespread pesticide contamination in California’s legal cannabis products, raising serious concerns for consumers and industry participants.

As the Minnesota cannabis industry awaits a possible launch in 2025, officials have warned hemp product retailers that inspectors will begin examining their hemp flower products to make sure they do not exceed the 0.3% delta-9 THC potency limits.

Many of California’s cannabis testing labs are currently not allowed to test the potency of flower products due to a rule change designed to combat so-called “lab shopping” in the state.

Starting this year, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority will be utilizing “secret shoppers” in its effort to regulate the industry. Under the new law, regulators will anonymously purchase products and have them tested by a lab.

In a move that highlights the controversy around potency obsession and lab-shopping, Washington state regulators have issued an emergency suspension of a cannabis testing lab’s license alleging the lab had submitted “incorrect and/or false” test results to its clients and the government.

South Dakota officials are considering changes to the state’s medical cannabis program that would allow 10% more THC in medical cannabis products and require rolling papers used for prerolls to be tested by state-approved laboratories.

At least two recent studies found that a significant number of medical cannabis products available to registered patients in Maine would fail the adult-use industry’s testing protocols for containing either pesticides, yeast and mold, or harmful microbes.