Ten years ago, medical marijuana was only legal in about half of U.S. states, and recreational use was outlawed in most of the country. Today, although marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, most states have legalized some use of the drug, setting off a green rush that, according to the data platform Statista, is predicted to bring in nearly $47 billion in revenue this year.

But in the absence of regulations or guidance from the federal government, states are struggling to oversee the flood of new businesses and products. Although experts told Undark that illicit marijuana remains the bigger safety hazard, across the country, independent tests have documented rampant problems with the legal products on dispensary shelves, including overstated THC levels as well as amounts of pesticides, mold, and heavy metals that exceed state limits.

Whistleblower reports and interviews with industry insiders show how some producers seek out lenient testing labs to examine their product. Some labs, in turn, may see a boost in business if they inflate THC values and greenlight contaminated products — a pattern corroborated by Undark’s own analysis of testing data obtained through state open records laws.

More potent products sell better, said Mike Graves, a one-time major Oklahoma grower who has tangled with Parker and Hrabina. In an interview with Undark, Graves acknowledged shopping around for favorable labs: “I’d roll a joint,” he said, and would “send it out to three different companies.” He would then use whichever company returned the highest THC level to provide the required testing certification for his products.

The industry’s problem, Graves said, is lax oversight of bad labs.

Believe it or not, this is a very short excerpt. Ever since I discovered Delta 8 years ago, I won’t buy anything without a CoA, but back then it was all online, and Redditors would regularly post about differing results when they sent samples off for testing.

In this way, users were regulating the market for those who knew where to look – and, in the end, pretty much three to four distillate producers got the overall stamp of approval. That’s simply not feasible in a fractured physical retail flower market.

And boards or commissions previously used to handling just alcohol have an entirely new issue on their hands, as alcohol is rather widely known for being a good disinfectant. Under a previous administration, I’d have said marijuana should have fallen under USDA testing upon federal legalization, but should both randomly happen, the current patchwork system would likely be more reliable.