The Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) is launching a five-laboratory testing pilot this month designed to measure the accuracy and consistency of marijuana potency results and address concerns over “lab shopping,” potency manipulation and testing fraud.
The CSQ CLEAR Pilot Program will compare cannabinoid testing results for marijuana flower across four independent laboratories registered with the state and the MCA Office of Laboratory Services reference laboratory.
Regulators will examine how closely results agree between laboratories, whether individual laboratories produce repeatable results and how new measurements compare with product labels and the products’ original Certificates of Analysis.
The state says all findings will be anonymized and the pilot is intended for informational purposes only, with no punitive consequences for participating laboratories.
The program was developed by Cannabis Safety & Quality (CSQ) and uses statistical analysis designed to detect patterns that could indicate testing manipulation or fraud.
“Lab shopping” generally occurs when marijuana producers seek testing laboratories likely to return more favorable results, particularly higher THC potency figures. Because higher-potency marijuana can command higher prices in some markets, regulators and researchers have increasingly raised concerns about financial incentives that can distort laboratory results.
The Maryland Cannabis Administration said previous research has found THC levels inflated by as much as 25% in some legal marijuana markets.
Tabatha Robinson, director of the Maryland Cannabis Administration, said the pilot will give regulators an opportunity to evaluate testing performance across the state and determine whether changes are necessary.
Maryland has taken several steps to expand its ability to independently oversee marijuana testing. The state established its own reference laboratory to allow regulators to perform testing separate from private laboratories used by marijuana businesses.
Under the new pilot, marijuana flower samples will undergo testing across all five participating laboratories, allowing regulators to directly compare potency measurements under controlled conditions.
Testing is scheduled to begin in early October, with the administration expecting to compile and publicly release results in December.
Those findings could provide one of the clearest state-level measurements yet of how closely commercial marijuana laboratory results match when identical or comparable products are independently retested.
