Cannabis Testing Headlines For March 2023
ICYMI
In Case You Missed These Stories
I’ve been posting headlines and stories at Eye On Cannabis to keep track of some of the stories I see about testing — they often come up again! Here are the entries for March of 2023.
Arkansas
Arizona
California
Colorado
- Colorado issued a recall of products that “initially passed contaminant testing, but subsequently failed retesting.” Reporting by Westword indicated that MED and the state ‘received information that led them to retest.’
- Colorado regulator issues two new warnings about moldy cannabis products.
Massachusetts
- Massachusetts regulators have their hands full following their unintentional release of … far too much information that included private information about every cannabis employee in MA. The kerfluffle keeps giving . . .to author Eric Casey’s inbox.
- Cannabis lab MCR wrote a letter to all MA state commissioners about an overly-aggressive inspection carried out on 3/23/2023. This story has been developing since then.
New York
- NY Insider performed potency analysis on 8 of the highest testing strains and have published some results. They reported their results and findings to the Office of Cannabis Management.
- The NY Insider potency analysis has caused regulators to revoke the stop-gap testing measure that they hope is one of the primary causes of the potency inflation.
- New York cannabis store added potency disclaimers to some products in reaction to issues with the current lab system.
New Mexico
- New Mexico delayed implementation of a testing regulation aimed at changing the collection of samples from the producer to the laboratory.
Oklahoma
- The Oklahoma Senate has approved six bills related to cannabis. SB 813 “authorizes the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority to operate a quality assurance laboratory for the purpose of conducting compliance testing of medical marijuana businesses.” A good summary of all the bills that were approved is here.
Pennsylvania
- Last week, DA Kevin Steele of Montgomery County announced that THC gummies had tested positive for fentanyl and heroin by a field device. However, subsequent actual lab tests were unable to confirm the DA’s field finding.
- Green Analytics North, LLC d/b/a Steep Hill PA, Hanging Gardens, LLC, Pennsylvania Medical Solutions, LLC, Curaleaf PA, LLC, AES Compassionate Care, LLC, Standard Farms, LLC, and Parea BioSciences, LLC have filed a lawsuit against the PA Department of Health to stay the new rules that require producers to use two separate laboratories to test their product. Read the lawsuit here. Since Steep Hill terminated their license agreement with Green Analytics at the beginning of the month, effectively disbanding their operations in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. I wonder where that leaves their lawsuit in PA about the second test.
South Dakota
Vermont