Secret shopper program aims to keep Massachusetts cannabis companies honest

Massachusetts cannabis companies may want to up their compliance game, given that a long-mandated “secret shopper” program to ensure compliance with packaging and labeling rules is expanding, the state’s acting marijuana czar said over the weekend.

“There’s a secret shopper to make sure that the issue is being addressed,” Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion said Saturday during a panel discussion about fraudulently inflated THC potency numbers on cannabis packaging.

The problem has become common nationwide as consumers often are willing to pay more for higher-potency products, which has incentivized both cannabis brands and labs to lie about both potency testing results and safety testing.

“There’s no room for that. Testing is the thing that differentiates the regulated market from the unregulated market. The fact that people can go in as consumers and trust the product and know what they’re getting, that’s really important,” Concepcion said, during the New England Cannabis Convention’s Boston conference.

Concepcion afterward told Green Market Report that the secret shopper program is “ramping up,” with a focus on “the integrity of the product.”

“It’s making sure that that labeling is accurate, that potency levels are being described accurately, to make sure that what is being displayed for consumers and the information being relied on is accurate. That’s the biggest thing,” Concepcion said.

Though she remained relatively tight-lipped about the program thus far, she replied “yes” when an audience member asked if there had been “repercussions” for any companies found to be in violation of industry rules.

And, Concepcion said, there will be more info coming in the near future about how the program works. But for now, she couldn’t say much about what the penalties may be for rulebreakers, who or how many companies have faced citations, or any other real details.

“You can anticipate a conversation around the secret shopper program at an upcoming public meeting and the mechanics of that,” Concepcion said. “I don’t want to say too much, because we have to work through the logistics, but there’s another component that will strengthen it. You can look for that component coming up.”

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission’s next public meeting is scheduled for April 11.

However, Yasha Kahn at MCR Labs in Massachusetts said the CCC has not shared any information about a secret shopper program with operators.

He also said there has not been a single cannabis product recall despite data showing dubiously low failure rates for mold testing, even with plenty of evidence that many Massachusetts cannabis labs skew their data to satisfy brands that only want passing test results – not honest ones.

Kahn added that the program has been written into state regulations for years, but it’s only apparently in recent months that the CCC may have gotten it off the ground.

“For a state to not have any product recalls for safety reasons, no labs being fined, no nothing, while claiming to have a secret shopper program, the question is, how could the data look so bad?” Kahn said.

Kahn also questioned why the state has not been more transparent with what exactly the secret shopper program is doing, if the goal is to build consumer confidence as a watchdog.

“Why is it a secret? The word ‘secret’ is tied to the shopper, not the program,” Kahn said. “Why not make all the results public so the public is aware this program exists and whether the results are accurate or not?”

The CCC noted in follow up correspondence with Green Market Report that the agency initiated at least one product recall and a quarantine order in October 2021 for cannabis goods sold by dispensary ACK Natural LLC over “unverifiable mycotoxin testing results.”