Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission Advances New Testing Regulations

The regulations enhance public health and safety by adding new testing requirements

WORCESTER—The Cannabis Control Commission (Commission) at Thursday’s public meeting advanced new cannabis testing regulations that will modernize requirements for compliance testing and put Massachusetts on the forefront of cannabis testing standards nationwide.

The new draft testing regulations were released at the Oct. 22 meeting, allowing Commissioners to consider important policy questions, including which cannabis and cannabis products require testing, when testing must occur and how Independent Testing Labs (ITLs) reanalyze products that fail testing.

The draft regulations expand the Commission’s testing requirements and create a new section under 935 CMR dedicated entirely to cannabis testing to support public health and safety. The draft regulations also fulfill new requirements under Ch. 65 of the Acts of 2026 (Ch.65) and follow a holistic review of testing protocols incorporating feedback from an informal public comment period and public hearing held in August, feedback from a previous ITL listening session, and meetings with ITL owners.

“These new regulations are intended to reduce variability in testing, improve the accuracy and reliability of test results, and strengthen the Commission’s ability to identify testing deficiencies and take necessary enforcement actions,” Chair Chris Harding said. “These changes fulfill our duty under Ch. 65 of the Acts of 2026 but, more importantly, will strengthen trust in the products available on the state’s medical and adult-use marketplaces.”

“Modernizing testing regulations is a priority for the Commission, and we anticipate continuing to add new updates in 2027, including sampling and pesticides,” said Commissioner Anthony Wilson, who leads an internal working group focused on cannabis testing. “For consumers and patients, the proposed regulations will reinforce final form testing requirements, providing important safeguards as cannabis and cannabis products pass from cultivators to manufacturers and into retail stores and treatment centers.”

“The Massachusetts cannabis industry recently marked major milestones like reaching $10 billion in sales and overcoming a repeal effort by ballot measure,” Commissioner Xiomara Albán DeLobato said. “Those milestones were possible thanks to the industry operating safely under the Commission’s oversight, building trust with patients and consumers. These new testing regulations create a standard framework that takes our commitment of leading a safe industry to the next level.”

The policy questions decided by Commissioners at Thursday’s meeting include:

• Requiring regulatory compliance testing prior to any sale conducted business to business or business to consumer;
• Transitioning to targeted microbial speciation testing for specified organisms of public health concern;
• Establishing standards for ITLs to automatically retest failures prior to issuing a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) to confirm the validity of initial failed results and distinguish actual regulatory noncompliance from potential lab errors;
• Eliminating the Standards Laboratory license type;
• Requiring product labels to identify if products have been sanitized or remediated; and
• Establishing that new testing regulations under 935 CMR 503.000 will go into effect six months after promulgation, tentatively scheduled for April 2027.

Commissioners are expected to approve the draft testing regulations in December alongside other updates considered at meetings throughout September and October. The Commission will accept feedback on all those regulations beginning in January during a wider public comment process for regulatory updates related to Ch. 65 implementation.

“Although this is the first update of cannabis compliance testing regulations since the Commission’s founding, Commissioners and staff have been hard at work over the years ensuring that products available to consumers and patients are safe,” Executive Director Travis Ahern said. “The Commission is looking forward to hearing from the public as we move toward promulgating these new testing regulations and other important updates made in recent months in early 2027.”

The draft testing regulations—and future updates planned in 2027—are the culmination of testing efforts carried out over the last several years including:

• Conducting a THC potency audit and releasing results that required corrective actions for noncompliant products as part of the Commission’s oversight efforts;
• Centralizing testing-related materials on a new Testing and Analysis webpage;
• Publishing test results for total THC to the agency’s Open Data platform;
• Creating an ongoing, internal task force focused on testing;
• Updating Secret Shopper program regulations to allow third-party vendors or contractors—such as nonprofits, research institutions, and other legal entities—to enter into agreements with the Commission to act as secret shoppers;
• Requiring ITLs to upload digital COAs after every test to document methods labs use to test products in compliance with regulations, and working with Metrc, the seed-to-sale tracking system, to make those COAs available to consumers and patients;
• Creating the Public Health and Safety Advisories web portal, where consumers and patients can view products flagged for health and safety issues;
• Requiring licensed adult- and medical-use cannabis businesses to submit one test sample package to a single ITL for all compliance testing; and
• Convened a public listening session with ITLs and the public to hear concerns about testing regulations.
  

Information about compliance testing can be found on the Commission’s Testing and Analysis page. Commission meetings and public hearings can be found on the calendar page or by contacting the Commission by phone (774-415-0200) or email (Commission@CCCMass.com), or following the agency on Facebook, LinkedIn, and  X.

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