Michigan cannabis customers enjoy strong weed, but many within the industry say high demand has led to questionable conduct by greedy marijuana growers, producers and testing labs.
Growers pressure labs for the higher potency results, and sometimes labs bend science to reach them, multiple lab representatives industry insiders have alleged to MLive.
“People are spending money every day — $250 million a month is being spent — and if a significant amount of that is being (potency) inflated, people are being ripped off on a massive scale,” said Avi Zallen, CEO of Steadfast Lab in Hazel Park. “I don’t know if it’s as much of a health and safety question as it is ripping off consumers.”
Because marijuana flower prices and profits are so closely linked to THC percentages — higher the better — reports of potency inflation have plagued nearly every legal marijuana market in the U.S.
“How fast the market has expanded, it’s an inherent problem,” said Alex Adams, CEO of Cambium Analytica, a Traverse City lab. “This is not new. We’ve known about this problem. It’s terrible in California, it’s getting worse in some of the older markets.
“If there is an incentive created at the laboratories, then people will … use those laboratories at the expense of the customer.”
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