A Massachusetts cannabis testing laboratory is suing eight rival testing labs claiming they are inflating THC levels and ignoring “safety fails” in contamination tests. The lawsuit, filed last month by MCR Labs in Massachusetts Superior Court, names Analytics Labs, LLC; Assured Testing Laboratories, LLC; CDX Analytics, LLC; Green Analytics Massachusetts, LLC (formally known as Steep Hill Massachusetts); Green Valley Analytics, LLC; Kaycha MA, LLC; Massbiolytics Corp.; and Safetiva Labs, LLC.
The lawsuit contends that because the defendants “are willing to engage in these unlawful and unscrupulous practices, the Massachusetts cannabis industry is rife with … ‘lab shopping.’”
“This race-to-the-bottom willingness to manipulate testing also results in unknowing consumers overpaying for lower-potency cannabis riddled with dangerous contaminants. Given the rampant corruption of compliance testing, neither consumers nor dispensaries could be expected to know which products on the shelf may be unlawfully contaminated or have misleading potency claims.” — MCR Labs, LLC vs. Analytics Labs, et al
MCR argues in the lawsuit that the rival labs “cheated to steal customers away” and that the “unfair and unlawful competition has had the expected and intended result of diverting existing and prospective clients away from [MCR], who refused to join in the fraudulent scheme to corrupt quality and compliance testing in the Massachusetts cannabis market.”
The lawsuit claims that, in the “most blatant cases” defendants participated in “round robins,” a scheme “in which prospective customers sent representative samples to multiple labs.”
“The lab with the highest potency and lowest fail rates (most favorable results) would generally win the customer’s business,” MCR claims in the lawsuit. “Whether in a ‘round robin’ or through other means, the effect is the same. The customer selects the lab that gives them the highest – and most marketable and profitable – THC potency results and/or lowest fail rates. In other words, it promotes lab shopping.”
MCR is seeking monetary damages and an injunction against the labs from engaging in test manipulation.
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