Imagine you use cannabis to help control chronic pain. You are cleaning the house one Saturday morning when you find some leftover cannabis that must have fallen between the cracks in the couch cushions. You consider this a fantastic find until you actually use it and discover that it’s not so potent. Does that mean the CoA that came with the drug was incorrect?
Loss of potency is a valid question given an ongoing lawsuit against a California producer being accused of inflating THC potency on its labels. Apparently, some of the company’s products were independently tested and found to be significantly less potent when compared against numbers from their certificates of analysis (CoAs)
California regulations mandate that all cannabis product labels accurately list THC content with a margin of error at 10%. If a product is listed as having 20% THC, actual testing must reveal a content of between 18-20% for the product to be compliant.
Inflating THC Content
The lawsuit against the makers of the Jeeter brand was brought by two California residents who allege they purchased mislabeled products they believed offered more THC than they actually did. The lawsuit was partially motivated by independent testing conducted by Week Week, testing that suggested the manufacturer was inflating its THC content by as much as 100%.
Taking into account the fact that some of the products could have lost potency prior to being tested, a second test was run. Discrepancies still existed, but they were much lower.
Marijuana Can Lose Its Potency
In its defense, the manufacturer stands by its labels and CoAs. The lab that handles testing for CoA purposes stands by its results as well. So is it possible for a product CoA to show one thing and independent test than to reveal something else, and both be accurate?
Technically, yes. As Park City, UT’s Deseret Wellness cannabis pharmacy explains, cannabis potency can decrease over time. That’s because the cannabinoids and terpenes in cannabis plants gradually break down. As they do, potency decreases.
Deseret Wellness says that a properly harvested, processed, and packaged product should maintain potency for between 6 and 12 months. However, things like temperature and sunlight can affect potency over shorter periods of time. This suggests that it is entirely possible to find significant discrepancies between CoAs and future independent testing given enough time in between.
Labeling Continues to Be a Problem
This particular court case aside, labeling continues to be a problem for both THC and CBD products. Numerous small-scale studies done over the last 18 months demonstrate that consumers can’t always trust product packaging.
Federal and state regulators have acknowledged that labeling accuracy is a problem. They have also acknowledged that both CBD and THC are largely unregulated in this country. A lack of strict regulations from the FDA allows manufacturers to mislabel products with impunity. Expect regulatory changes at some point. They are coming.
For now, though, an official CoA only documents potency for state regulatory purposes. But regulators need to take CoAs at face value. Most states have neither the time nor the resources to do their own testing to verify that CoAs are accurate. That leaves consumers with no choice but to trust what they read on product packaging.
Will product packaging be inaccurate from time to time? Yes. Inaccurate labels have already proven to be a legitimate problem. Yet there’s little consumers can do about it. They need to inform themselves as best they can and make decisions accordingly. If they believe they have been cheated, they can always turn to the courts for relief.
