Mold contamination of cannabis sold in Massachusetts is far more common than state regulators have acknowledged, according to some labs tasked with testing the products.
Last week, the Cannabis Control Commission issued a consumer advisory about mold in select products. The commission said it had received no reports of illnesses, and did not issue a recall.
But some labs and consumer advocates argue the problem is much deeper than those products included in the advisory. They say the commission’s lax oversight has resulted in insufficient or even fraudulent testing.
“I think that the amount of contaminated product out there is significant,” said Christopher Hudalla, the founder of ProVerde Labs in Milford, which is one of the companies licensed by the Cannabis Control Commission to test cannabis products.
Hudalla said his company has been warning the commission about widespread contamination for the last four years.
“We sent [the commission] hundreds, close to a thousand data points of samples that were either exceeding the microbial limits established by the state of Massachusetts or that were not tested appropriately,” Hudalla said. “When we provided that information, it included the producer and lot number so that they could check into it, so they could do an investigation.”
The response, Hudalla said, was minimal.
“Until this last week, we didn’t see any action from any of our efforts to call attention to this,” he said.
Danny Carson, a self-described cannabis worker advocate and activist, has also raised concerns about mold contamination.
“I’ve worked in a lot of facilities in the state myself and I have seen mold problems,” Carson told GBH News. “I’ve had to be one of the workers that’s going around and literally looking at this cannabis under a microscope to see if there’s mold on it, and then being told by my supervisor that I just need to pick it apart and pick the moldy pieces off, and then put the rest of it into an eighth container to be sold.”
Among the labs Carson previously worked at was the Holyoke production facility of a cannabis producer named Trulieve, where worker Lorna McMurrey died in 2022 after an asthma attack. A lawsuit filed by the family alleges her death was the result of exposure to cannabis dust and mold. The company, which no longer operates in Massachusetts, paid a $350,000 fine.
Since then, Carson has called on the commission to change its standards. Carson has brought products to ProVerde for testing to further that cause. At a Cannabis Control Commission meeting in November, Carson testified that a single pre-rolled joint that ProVerde tested contained 50 times the state’s legal limit for mold.
Lab shopping
Contaminated products pass inspection as a result of heated competition for business between testing labs, multiple sources told GBH News.
Companies producing cannabis products in Massachusetts can choose which labs will test their products. And as more and more labs have been approved by the state, Hudalla said some labs try to attract business by under-reporting mold contamination.
One way that happens, he said, is with a new and more lenient testing method. Traditionally, labs have used a culture-based method, meaning they grow microbes in a petri dish and count any mold spores that appear. More recently, though, many labs have been using a method called PCR, which can reliably identify the DNA presence of a particular mold but miss other types.
“As a result, labs, especially the newer labs as they were … trying to get market share, they adopted PCR testing because of its [low] failure rate,” Hudalla said. “I don’t know if they made that a conscious decision or not, but it is well known at this point that PCR passes more product than culture-based,” Hudalla said. “It got to the point where producers even seek out these labs to make sure that they’re going to pass.”
And that, Hudalla said, is hurting his lab’s bottom line.
“Our business is suffering,” Hudalla said. “We were the first lab established in Massachusetts in January of 2013. We have a fairly large facility. We have some of the lowest pricing. And we struggle to get market share because nobody wants accurate results.”
The Cannabis Control Commission did not make anyone available for an interview for this story. A spokesperson said the commission could not comment on last week’s mold alerts because it is currently investigating what happened in those cases.
“The Commonwealth’s Independent Testing Laboratories are held to some of the highest standards in the nation,” a spokesperson for the commission said in a statement. “The Commission continues to conduct routine announced and unannounced inspections of all Marijuana Establishments, including [independent testing laboratories], to ensure compliance,” the statement reads. “Upon receipt of any complaints from industry stakeholders, Patients, Consumers, or the general public, the Commission follows up and may conduct due diligence or refer issues to counterpart agencies as needed.”
The commission spokesperson noted in the statement that they issued an order in December requiring companies to submit samples to just one lab for compliance testing, in an effort to stop producers from shopping around for a passing result.
Labs’ conflict prompts lawsuit
This dispute between Massachusetts testing labs has made its way to the courts. Last month, Framingham-based MCR Labs filed a lawsuit against eight competitors alleging the companies fraudulently manipulated test results — not just to hide mold, but also to report higher levels of the psychoactive component THC.
“The practice of lab shopping results in significant harm to consumers, who are being presented with cannabis products that—due to fraudulent testing practices of Defendants have materially false labels,” the lawsuit reads. “By law, cannabis products are required to truthfully reflect the product’s Total THC Potency. Further, cannabis that contains mold, yeast, or other contaminants past a certain threshold may not be sold to the public, but because of Defendants’ conduct, myriad products on the shelves contain contaminants at unlawful levels, posing a significant public health risk.”
MCR Labs and its attorney did not respond to a request for an interview.
The lawsuit describes the eight competing labs of having “wildly low failure rates” in mold testing. For example, when an unnamed cannabis producer switched from being tested by MCR Labs to a competing lab called CDX Analytics in 2022, their failure rate dropped from 9.4% to 0%, according to the lawsuit.
“This drastic elimination of mold cannot be explained by anything other than result manipulation,” the lawsuit says.
GBH News reached out to all defendants still operating in Massachusetts, and spoke with just one.
Massbiolytics in Dracut uses the more sensitive culture-based tests but still reported a mold testing failure rate of 2.3%, which the lawsuit called “many times lower than the industry average.”
Craig Sockol, president of Massbiolytics, said he was unable to comment on the lawsuit, but said the cannabis testing industry in Massachusetts is “a bit in turmoil.”
“There’s way too many players, too many companies, too many people losing money,” he said. “So it’s a difficult area for some right now.”
Sockol acknowledged that “lab shopping” is a problem.
“In an ideal world, everybody would be giving out exactly the same results. So, you know, the shopping would be kind of irrelevant,” he said. “But it is the case that some people are doing it.”
A call for increased oversight
Testing labs raising the alarm over contamination are placing the blame on a failure by the Cannabis Control Commission to adequately regulate the industry.
“It’s been very frustrating, the fact that they won’t even look on the consumer shelves when we tell them what rocks to look under,” Hudalla said.
The Cannabis Control Commission has a system to check under those rocks. But the commission doesn’t appear to have used it.
In 2023, the CCC awarded a contract to a testing lab called ATOZ [pronounced “A to Z”] Laboratories for services including a “secret shopper” program, in which products bought off the shelf at Massachusetts dispensaries would be tested for mold and other contaminants.
But, to date, the commission has not asked ATOZ to do any “secret shopper” testing.
“We have received no samples in regards to that secret shopper program,” said Corey Aldoupolis, lab director of ATOZ Laboratories. “Would I love to test these things and move forward? Yep. Absolutely.”
As for the heated and litigious competition between labs and accusations of fraud, Aldoupolis said there’s a need for the commission to step in and standardize the testing process.
“I think that there’s actually pretty good consensus among all the labs that we want to be regulated,” he said. “We want somebody to come in and tell us, like, what are we supposed to do?”
Labs can have opinions about limits on mold and what species of mold to look for, he said.
“But at the end of the day, we’re analytical chemists and microbiologists who have gotten really good at finding these contamination. And we’re not, you know, public health experts.”
The labs have been asking for monthly meetings with the commission to work through these issues, Aldoupolis said. The commission has committed to quarterly meetings. So far there’s been just one, in January.
“We’re looking for that interaction with the commission,” he said. “Let’s come up with that set of rules and let’s standardize it so that we can follow it. And then hold us all accountable to those standards. Because right now it’s like a four-way intersection, and with no stoplights or signs. There’s horses and bikes and cars, and everybody’s doing their own thing.”
