From legal complaints to a recent public health advisory, it all comes down to laboratory testing standards and enforcement
Legal threats and litigation aren’t new phenomena in Massachusetts cannabis. Since before the first licensees planted seeds, lawyers have lined their pockets off of more than just helping businesses navigate complex regulations.
There have been complaints against grifters who swindled investors without knowledge of or plans to succeed in the industry, plus countless court actions over unpaid invoices.
Most recently, earlier this week, a cultivator in western Mass sued the Cannabis Control Commission among others for “the ruination of a small farm by the repeated negligence of a large, multi-state plant producer and supplier.” The plaintiff argues that contamination from a neighboring non-cannabis farm’s pesticides resulted in losses “estimated to total at least $17 million.” At the center of that literal dust-up: laboratory testing standards.
And then there is the neverending legal feud between ousted CCC Chair Shannon O’Brien and state Treasurer Deb Goldberg. The back-and-forth has consumed untold hours of commission time, including repeated closed-door executive sessions during public meetings. On the surface, we’ve heard a lot about O’Brien’s alleged coarse behavior and insensitivity during her tenure, but part of that legal exchange also involves issues that are central to at least one other lawsuit with massive implications …
On Jan. 30, MCR Labs filed suit in Suffolk County Superior Court against eight other Massachusetts Independent Testing Labs (ITLs) for alleged “violations” of the state’s cannabis law, “intentional interference with advantageous business relations,” and “unjust enrichment.” The Framingham company argues that the plaintiffs “artificially inflate Total THC Potency in tests of their customers’ cannabis products; and/or (2) ignore ‘safety fails’ in test results … so that the test results will not show the presence of these unlawful contaminants.”
“We have fought against widespread result manipulation in the cannabis industry for years,” MCR Labs wrote in a statement coinciding with the complaint being filed. “Fraudulent testing practices harm patients, consumers, industry workers, and ethical businesses. … Honest and accurate testing is essential for consumer safety, public health, and a fair and prosperous market.”
Surveyed all together, it seems that many of the cases calling attention to Massachusetts cannabis circle back to testing standards and accuracy, and how those elements which are essential to a functioning industry are defined by different parties.
How O’Brien’s lawsuit relates to complaints over testing
Even critics of the former CCC chair can’t deny that she was willing to listen to industry stakeholders when others in power positions would not. How can we say that with such confidence? Not just because O’Brien’s attorneys have noted it, but because it’s been said many times by various complaining parties. As Jeff Jeff Rawson, Ph.D., president of the Institute of Cannabis Science in Cambridge, wrote in a devastating letter to the treasurer back in 2023, “My experiences leading an organization to protect consumers of cannabis have led me to see Chair O’Brien as a needed reformer at the CCC, and I believe she is the subject of retaliation in response to performing her duty.”
Rawson continued, “The Institute of Cannabis Science has recently discussed with Chair O’Brien problems with scientific regulation of cannabis testing in the state, including how some of the staff at CCC are compromised by conflicts of interest and how misinformation is rife in the adult-use cannabis market of MA. … Chair O’Brien was one of the most receptive and understanding of the public officials we’ve encountered as we seek to reform cannabis testing.”
The public health advisory and the lab lawsuit
With the MCR Labs suit still the talk of the industry, on Feb. 3 the CCC informed “consumers and patients” via public advisory about “new health and safety concerns regarding marijuana products … that may have been sold recently by Marijuana Establishments and Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers.” The items in question came from The Heirloom Collective and Holistic Industries, the latter of which is also mentioned in the MCR Labs lawsuit, and not in a positive way.
The tie-in references May 2024, when the CCC reached a stipulated agreement with the Monson-based Holistic Industries following an investigation that started years prior. Per the agency, “Between September and November of 2021, the Commission received complaints regarding potential mold contamination at Holistic’s Monson facility, including complaints from employees that potentially contaminated product was ‘pushed through anyway.’ The Commission further received a letter from the Monson Board of Health requesting an inspection of the facility due to mold complaints.”
“In the course of investigation, Holistic Industries cooperated with investigators and produced records.” As part of the agreement, the company agreed to “Engage a third-party Independent Testing Laboratory (ITL) acceptable to both the Commission and the Respondent, to perform all required microbial testing for Marijuana flower” for six months from the date of the order, along with a $200,000 fine.
The MCR suit offers a version of what happened next: “In the Stipulated Agreement, Holistic Industries was required to use the CCC’s contracted laboratory, ATOZ Labs, for the Total Yeast and Mold screen for six months. … In this timeframe, ATOZ Labs failed 59.5% of Holistic Industries’ samples for Total Yeast and Mold. Holistic Industries continued to also test with Defendant Green Analytics, who failed only 4% of the received samples.”
MCR Labs did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Holistic Industries General Counsel Kyle Crossley explained, “On January 23, 2025, the CCC notified Holistic that certain products were placed on administrative hold because they failed off-the-shelf, post-market testing conducted approximately seven to nine months following the initial passing tests.”
Crossley continued, “To reiterate, all of Holistic’s products that the CCC placed on hold had previously passed testing in April-June 2024, which is why the CCC allowed them to be sold. Although all recalled product previously passed the CCC-mandated testing before being sold and, as the CCC notice said, there have been zero reports of any consumer health issues, we are honoring the product recall.
“The circumstances that led to this product recall shed light on the need for standardized testing methodologies and the negative impact the lab infighting, and the CCC’s choice to side with certain labs without making formal rule changes, has on operators, consumers and the entire cannabis program.”
The timing of the public health advisory
The aforementioned statement from Holistic Industries (which can be read in full here) argues that the company has been thrust into the “center of the independent testing lab (ITL) infighting in Massachusetts.”
According to the company: “This unprecedented CCC action has been taken in response to a complaint lodged by one of the ITLs pushing for its preferred method to be the standard testing methodology in the Commonwealth.”
We asked the CCC if the timing of the Feb. 3 enforcement announcement about contaminated products was related in any way to the filing of the lawsuit by MCR Labs days earlier against eight other ITLs, including one which is specifically called out in the suit for issues related to Holistic Industries enforcement actions. (That company, Green Analytics, formerly dba Steep Hill Massachusetts, did not respond to a request for comment).
In response to our inquiry, a CCC spokesperson wrote, “The Cannabis Control Commission released two separate health and safety advisories … as part of its regulatory mission to protect consumers from potentially contaminated products. These advisories were issued for public awareness, not in response to any external litigation.”
More fallout following the Holistic Industries announcement
Making an already ugly situation worse, days after issuing the Feb. 3 advisory about the aforementioned moldy products, the CCC quietly conceded that some of the information in that notice was inaccurate. The correction read …
“The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission has updated this advisory issued Feb. 3rd to clarify the batch numbers of contaminated and potentially contaminated Marijuana flower and/or Marijuana pre-rolls (‘affected products’) in order for Consumers and Patients to more easily reference their product labels. The affected products, product names, and strains have not changed.”
That wasn’t all. The advisory also named the dispensaries where “affected products” had been sold, but then later removed some of the stores from their list—after television stations and local news outlets all around the commonwealth called those shops out. “Additionally,” the CCC wrote, “due to a transcription error, eight entities were previously identified on the list of Marijuana Retailers and dispensing Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers as having either sold affected products or maintained affected product in their inventory.”
The commission also clarified, “Marijuana Retailers do not cultivate and/or produce Marijuana or Marijuana Products only dispensing Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers may have sold or maintained affected products in their inventory. Cultivators and Product Manufacturers are not permitted to sell products directly to Patients. Holistic Industries, a medical cultivator/product manufacturer in Monson, was also inadvertently included in the February 3rd public health advisory but this entity holds a dispensing MTC license where the affected products remain on hold.”
Making national headlines
It’s anybody’s guess where all of this will lead, but most signs point toward reform. While the CCC has been historically reluctant to address complaints around testing, the agency has notably ramped up its efforts to address problems in the lab realm over the past year, even if its actions haven’t always been applauded by stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the cacophony of lawsuits threatens to impact the industry in unimaginable ways, with consumer confidence in the balance and several weed businesses closing. Massachusetts media is covering the negative developments extensively, like a GBH report from this week noting how “some labs and consumer advocates … say the commission’s lax oversight has resulted in insufficient or even fraudulent testing.”
In an interview with David Vaillencourt published in MJBiz today, the scientist mentioned Massachusetts when asked, “Why are we seeing so many testing lab scandals at this point in the industry’s evolution?” Vaillencourt “has spent most of his cannabis industry career working on standardizing the rules, measurements and recommended procedures that guide licensed marijuana businesses,” and said the quagmire has persisted “since third-party lab testing has been around.”
“I look at this as positive,” Vaillencourt said, “that it’s finally getting more traction.”
For those caught in the matrix of commonwealth cannabis legal complaints, the outlook may be darker.
