Massachusetts is still running cannabis testing off protocols last updated in 2021. The Cannabis Control Commission is now reviewing a draft that would change how independent labs test product, handle failures, and tell buyers when something was sanitized or remediated before it was sold.
The agency started that review at its public meeting on Oct. 22, the Cannabis Control Commission said, taking up draft regulations for independent testing laboratories and for cannabis and cannabis products. The draft pulls in an informal comment period, an August public hearing, an earlier lab listening session, and protocols the Commission already uses.
What the draft would change
The October notice describes expanded testing standards and action limits for contaminants of concern, along with rules for the repurposing, reanalysis, and remediation of products that fail compliance testing.
A Commission-related release gets more specific about the operating rules. Testing would have to happen before any sale, business to business or business to consumer. Independent labs would automatically retest failures before issuing a Certificate of Authenticity. Labels would have to identify products that had been sanitized or remediated. Microbial testing would shift to targeted speciation for specified organisms of public health concern. The Standards Laboratory license type would be eliminated.
In September the Commission said the new testing section was "intended to provide clear, consistent, and more transparent requirements for the testing of cannabis and cannabis products in Massachusetts." The sentence is the pitch. The regulations are not adopted.
December, then January, then maybe March
That later release said the Commission expected to approve the draft testing regulations in December and start taking public feedback in January. The October notice places the January comments inside a larger public process for regulatory updates tied to Chapter 65.
The Commission says the draft fulfills new requirements under Chapter 65 of the Acts of 2026. A Worcester Business Journal report said a new state law also requires the Commission to review cannabis testing regulations and protocols every two years. The last protocol update was 2021. A biennial review that shows up five years later is a review mostly in name.
A September Commission announcement described a final vote in March. The subsequent release put the effective date six months after promulgation, tentatively April 2027. Those are different steps. Approving a draft for comment is not promulgating a rule, and an effective date is not the vote. Nothing on the record shows these regulations have been adopted.
The industry wanted the protocols moved
Cannabis businesses and other industry participants have been urging regulators to update the state's testing rules and standardize methods, the Journal reported. Ryan Dominguez told the Journal that Colorado and New York have each updated their testing protocols multiple times since Massachusetts last revised its guidelines.
The same reporting described an audit of 63 cannabis flower products in which 13 fell outside the Commission's acceptable THC-label range, 75% to 125% of labeled potency. A label can miss by a quarter in either direction and still land inside that band. Thirteen products did not.
A state audit of the Commission, issued Sept. 26, 2023, reported identifying $10,192,986 worth of product that contained some material last tested for contaminants more than one year before it was sold to consumers.
544 samples over the mold limit
The testing fight already has a lab attached to it. The Commission suspended Assured Testing Laboratories' license, citing a pattern of failing to accurately report total yeast and mold results as an immediate and serious threat to public health and safety, MJBizDaily reported.
The Commission alleged the lab tested more than 22,500 marijuana products from April 2024 to April 2025, roughly 25% of the cannabis in the state. State data showed 544 samples above the 10,000 CFU-per-gram limit that the lab did not report as failures.
Automatic retesting before a certificate goes out is the draft's answer to a failed result that might otherwise never make the paperwork. A label flag for sanitizing or remediation is the answer for product that gets cleaned up and sent back toward the market. Shoppers will not see either change until the votes actually land.
If the Commission approves the draft in December, comments open in January, and a final vote follows the March schedule sketched in September, the rules still would not bind sales until six months after promulgation. The release only tentatively puts that date in April 2027. Until then, the testing section on the books is the 2021 version.
