Shane Johnson, MD

Certificates of analysis (COAs) are widely treated as the gold standard of cannabis ingredient quality, but they don’t always tell the full story. Many reveal only what the lab was asked to test for, and labs have powerful incentives to report favorable results. The result is a quiet but growing crisis of inconsistency, reformulations, and lost consumer trust.

The cannabis industry stands at a pivotal juncture. Echoing the transformative strides made by consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries including food and beverages, cannabinoid...