How a NY Cannabis Insider experiment led to statewide policy change​

[orthene]

https://www.syracuse.com/marijuana/2023/03/how-a-ny-cannabis-insider-experiment-led-to-statewide-policy-change.html

NY Cannabis Insider bought the eight highest-potency strains of legal recreational cannabis available in New York State on Feb. 24, drove them straight to a state-certified laboratory, placed them in anonymized Ziploc bags and submitted them for potency testing.

What came back has kicked open a hornet’s nest within the NY cannabis ecosystem and led to a regulatory policy change within the past 24 hours that affects every cannabis grower, processor and consumer in the state.

That’s because our lab results, which arrived on Friday, showed that the majority of the best-selling weed available in the nascent marketplace contained drastically lower THC than advertised:

One strain showed 33.8% THC on the consumer-facing label, while testing said the actual number was 21.7%
The lab found another product contained 17.7% THC, while its label advertised 28.5% – a roughly 47% difference
Only three samples came within a 10% margin of error from their labeled potency, which is more or less the variance state regulators are proposing be allowed for the New York industry
Only one out of the five brands had gone through testing for state-certified potency, and its strength was almost exactly what the label stated.

If you’re quick to blame the growers or processors who labeled these products, know that reality is more complicated.

The discrepancy between the label and what’s inside was due primarily to a government Band-Aid – called line testing – that allows flower and pre-rolls to get to shelves fast without measuring actual potency, and instead advertise “anticipated potency.”

Anticipated potency is the midpoint of the seed’s expected range of THC output, as reported by the producer of the seeds.

It is not a guarantee of what’s in that specific jar or joint.

“You’re relying on seeds and it’s never going to be accurate,” said Bob Miller, the chief operating officer at ACT Laboratories, one of New York State’s certified testing labs.

In California, class-action lawsuits over mislabeled THC have been filed against Lowell Farms, Stiiizy, Jeeter and Iron Works Collective. In Arkansas, a medical cannabis patient sued a testing lab and some growers for the same reason. In Canada, a labeling lawsuit was filed against more than a dozen cannabis companies over “drastically different” THC content compared to labels.

“Cannabis consumers have a right to rely on the accuracy of representations on packaging and labeling, and manufacturers and marketers have a duty to ensure the safety of their products and the accuracy of the representations on their labels,” said Sheri Tarr, the chief advisor of cannabis consulting firm ‘68 Partners. Tarr spent the bulk of her career as a plaintiff’s attorney holding pharmaceutical companies accountable for deceptive marketing.

She added, “There is an uptick in litigation involving deceptive marketing and defective manufacturing, and plaintiffs’ lawyers who are lying in wait will not likely be deterred from commencing legal actions against our operators because New York was trying to fix a demand problem.”

Since the lab results arrived on Friday, NY Cannabis Insider has talked with growers, processors, consultants, attorneys, reporters, laboratory staff and others in the cannabis space, and on Tuesday, we presented a summary of those conversations – and an explanation to our testing data – to executives at the Office of Cannabis Management.

By the following morning, the OCM concluded that the state’s flower “should be tested for potency” and announced an end to its line testing program for flower and pre-rolls.

The statement also said: “The Office of Cannabis Management is updating our testing protocols due to a greater than expected variability of potency testing for flower that doesn’t exist for concentrates and edibles. As an agency tasked with developing new regulations and standards, we constantly monitor data, and when dynamics change, we update the standards and protocols to reflect the findings.”

Half an hour after OCM spoke with NY Cannabis Insider, the agency’s compliance unit sent an email to all state-licensed cultivators and processors about the updated guidance.

That update also included a pass for those with line testing in process – and the agency made clear to NY Cannabis Insider that it has no plans to pull the remaining line-tested flower or pre-roll products from the state’s four operating dispensaries.

[jones]

Hilarious, the State has found yet another way to punish the few legal cannabis businesses there are with new higher costs

[BurnMan]

Most of these places will be bankrupt before the end of the year. The CAURD license holders are all in 1 million in debt the day they start.