The situation is multifaceted, including:
- A growing public mistrust of marijuana testing-lab results.
- A pervasive trend among marijuana businesses to shop for labs that will give them favorable test results.
- Testing labs that say they are struggling to retain market share and losing money as unethical counterparts gain new clients by inflating THC potency numbers.
Its even causing a race to the bottom in which labs are offering lower and lower prices for testing in order to compete.
The obsession around potency and the subsequent related problems have led to an increasing call for regulators to create more state-run testing labs that audit testing-lab results.
In August, the Florida Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU) fined two MMJ testing labs $20,000 each for allegedly using methods that were not compliant with state regulations.
ACS Laboratory, based in Sun City Center, and Green Scientific Labs (GSL), headquartered in Davie, were both fined.