SPARKS, Nev. – The Nevada Department of Taxation, Marijuana Enforcement Division has levied a $70,000 fine against state-licensed, Sparks-based cannabis testing facility Certified Agriculture Lab LLC, (known as Ag Lab) for “unsound testing practices,” according to media reports.
The lab also received a thirty-day suspension of its license, retroactively dated to November 18. Ag Lab must provide officials with a plan of correction to address non-compliant issues discovered by the state’s investigation before being allowed to resume testing for THC potency.
In mid-November, the taxation department announced Ad Lab-tested products were labeled inaccurately for levels of the cannabinoid THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis.
The department did not comment on actual levels of THC in the product, but urged consumers who had purchased products tested by Ag Lab to contact their retailers with concerns. They did not issue a product recall.
At the time, Ag Lab said the suspension was “as baseless as it is appalling” in a statement.
The taxation department issued an advisory in November when it suspend Ag Lab’s license, alerting “all legal cannabis users to take caution when using product tested by Certified Ag Lab LLC and when comparing any similar products of the same potency, as those effects may be greater and/or less than that of the product tested by Certified Ag Lab LLC.”
This is not the first suspension for Ag Lab. On December 22, 2018, the taxation department suspended the lab’s license for “not following proper lab procedures and good laboratory practices.” The license was reinstated in early January 2019, when “deficiencies had been corrected.”
