We interrupt but once more our sequence on Mass Spectroscopy for a dialogue on late breaking and necessary information within the hashish evaluation trade. Since the inception of this column in September of 2018 (joyful seventh birthday to the Cannabis Analysis column!), my purpose has been to passionately advocate for extra and higher testing within the hashish trade (1). To that finish I’ve printed a variety of columns on the issues I see within the hashish testing trade and what to do about them. As a lot of you already know, I’m additionally concerned with Big Sur Scientific, a maker of hashish efficiency analyzers, the place our motto is “Cannabis is Medicine…Test it like Medicine” (2).
A Commonwealth of Massachusetts courtroom submitting states {that a} coalition of hashish testing labs throughout the United States and Canada are suing Massachusetts-based Revvity Health Sciences (previously PerkinElmer, PE for brief from right here on out) for $1 billion, alleging that PE made “false promises,” bought devices “incapable of accurately and reliably performing as marketed,” and even accused PE of violations of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) act, which is commonly used to prosecute organized crime figures. The courtroom submitting additional alleges the corporate dedicated fraud, negligence, and breach of guarantee (3).
In this column I’ll assessment the issues myself and others have noticed within the hashish testing trade, share my distinctive perspective on this lawsuit, and focus on modifications the trade must make to maintain issues like this from taking place once more.
The Trouble with Cannabis Testing Labs
The issues with hashish testing labs are properly established within the literature. In the very first peer reviewed paper ever printed on this esteemed journal, my co-authors and I reported on how we submitted the identical marijuana distillate pattern to a number of ISO-certified and state-licensed hashish labs (4). These samples contained recognized quantities of 5 pesticides with ranges above these deemed protected by the state of California.
Disturbingly, two of the labs detected no pesticides in any way, which suggests harmful merchandise may have made it into {the marketplace}, doubtlessly harming hashish customers. The different three labs missed the presence of not less than one banned pesticide, and there was little settlement on the pattern composition throughout the labs. I additionally reviewed the issue of inter-lab variation within the hashish testing trade in two earlier columns (5, 6). I later mentioned how the label claims for the efficiency of marijuana buds bought at dispensaries sometimes overstate the precise Total THC degree (7). A easy Google search of phrases equivalent to “cannabis testing labs fraud” will carry up more moderen articles too quite a few to record right here.
I’ve proposed any variety of attainable options to the issues within the hashish testing trade together with higher requirements, higher consultant sampling, higher coaching, and regulation on the federal degree (8, 9, 10).
My Perspective on the Lawsuit
In the pursuits of full disclosure, the defendant within the lawsuit, PerkinElmer, was my employer from 2014 to 2016. While I used to be there, I labored as an functions scientist researching the usage of infrared spectroscopy for efficiency and terpene evaluation in marijuana buds, extracts, and distillates.
The methodology in dispute within the lawsuit includes pesticide evaluation utilizing fuel chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS). The state of California requires a panel of over 60 pesticides be analyzed in hashish samples. Other states have related necessities, however no state to the very best of my data requires the evaluation of as many pesticides as California.
When I used to be working at PE, the dilemma for California-based hashish evaluation labs was that analyzing all of the pesticides required by state regulation meant having to buy each a GC-MS and a LC-MS, an funding of tons of of 1000’s of {dollars}. Subsequently PE claimed it developed a way whereby all of the required pesticides may very well be analyzed utilizing simply one among these devices. This meant labs making an attempt to measure the total panel of pesticides required by California regulation may accomplish that on one instrument, saving time and cash. This methodology was developed by my software scientist colleagues at PE and I heard them give talks on this methodology a number of occasions at buyer dealing with conferences. To be clear, I used to be not concerned in creating this methodology since I’m not a specialist in GC-MS or LC-MS. Also, to be clear, I’m not able to touch upon the legitimacy of the lawsuit as I’ve not learn it, and I have no idea what PE did or didn’t promise its prospects, or the main points of the plaintiff’s experiences. My emotions are that all the state of affairs is unlucky and provides one other black eye to an trade that desperately must claw again public belief. I’m right here to level out the issues that I feel result in these issues and what to do about them.
Instrument Company Compensation Schemes
I’m an instrument firm founder and notice that instrument firms are in enterprise to earn money. To that finish, instrument firm salespeople are compensated partially by wage and partially by fee based mostly on the quantity of gross sales they obtain in a given interval in a given territory. During my unlucky incarceration as a salesman earlier in my profession (I used to be horrible at gross sales), I discovered how a lot stress salespeople are below to achieve gross sales objectives. And not like those that work on straight wage, if a salesman doesn’t carry out, their paycheck suffers, and they could lose their job. This signifies that, with all due respect, some salespeople might play quick and unfastened with the reality. Potential prospects must know this and study to deal with claims made by salespeople with some skepticism (this frankly is true in all gross sales conditions).
For advanced merchandise, equivalent to analytical devices, there generally is a technical-expert particular person, usually known as an functions scientist, whose job it’s to know the client’s software, counsel options, and reply technical questions. In essence, it’s the job of the functions scientist to realize the arrogance of the potential buyer in order that they know there’s somebody inside the firm who they’ll belief.
I do know that at some instrument firms, together with PE whereas I used to be there, the functions scientists are compensated partly in wage and partly in fee, albeit at a a lot decrease fee price than the salespeople. This scheme creates, for my part, an inherent battle for the functions scientist the place they could know what the client is being informed is an exaggeration or outright incorrect however are afraid to say something liable to their paycheck or their job. A possible answer to this drawback is to do away with commission-based pay for functions scientists and pay them based mostly on academic degree, expertise, and the standard of the recommendation they offer prospects.
Cannabis Labs Need to Do Their Homework
The well-known astronomer Carl Sagan as soon as mentioned, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” By claiming that it may possibly analyze 60+ pesticides precisely on one instrument as a substitute of two, for my part, PE is making a rare declare. This doesn’t imply this declare shouldn’t be true, nevertheless it means their prospects, together with hashish labs, must double down on their due diligence to ensure they’re being informed the reality.
Part of the issue right here is instrument firm software notes. These notes look scientific, have a number of convincing technical element, and are stuffed with cool charts and graphs. The drawback is that these notes are written to be gross sales instruments and current the corporate and instrument in its greatest gentle. Also, regardless that the science in an functions be aware may sound convincing, the work shouldn’t be essentially peer reviewed. Peer assessment is the tactic by which scientists decide the reality. Peer reviewed journals ship copies of potential papers to specialists in a subject for assessment and remark. These reviewers can say the paper is able to publish, wants revision, or they’ll forestall it from being printed in any respect. Cannabis Science and Technology (CST) publishes peer reviewed papers. I sit on the editorial board of this journal, and one among my jobs is to assessment papers previous to publication. All the papers I’ve printed on my work in CST have been by the peer assessment course of, together with the one I discussed above on inter-lab variation (4). This vetting of one another’s work is vital to how science establishes what’s actual and what isn’t. Peer reviewed work and information will all the time be extra reliable than something you can see in an organization’s gross sales and advertising and marketing literature.
As a scientist, it helps to be a born skeptic. For surprising experimental outcomes, I all the time say “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but if something occurrs three times you may be onto something.” So, along with peer reviewed papers, I strongly encourage hashish labs available in the market for new gear to get not less than three suggestions from the instrument firm from labs efficiently utilizing the instrument and methodology you might be considering shopping for. Then, contact these labs and ensure that all of them can again up the claims being made by the instrument firm. This is the surest method to defend your self from false claims.
More and Better Training
This goes to be the story of two forms of testing labs: forensic labs and hashish labs. In addition to my work on hashish evaluation, I’ve been educating forensic science labs the best way to carry out chemical analyses of hint proof and managed substances for over 20 years (11). In forensic labs, the administrators sometimes have a graduate diploma in a related science and 10+ years of expertise. For new hires to be allowed to make use of a chromatograph for case work they should have a bachelor’s diploma in a related scientific self-discipline, as much as a yr’s value of on-the-job coaching, and persevering with schooling programs like those I provide. They additionally should move a written and sensible check earlier than they’re licensed to do case work. This is, for my part, how issues needs to be accomplished.
Contrast this with how hashish labs perform. I base my opinions on the consulting work I’ve accomplished for hashish labs, and the nationwide search of hashish labs I carried out to discover a lab whose numbers I trusted to calibrate and validate my hashish analyzers (12). What I’ve seen has appalled me. I’ve encountered hashish labs the place the lab director is an inexperienced particular person with possibly a bachelor’s diploma and just a few years of expertise, and the technicians performing the analyses might not have a school diploma in any way. Even if these individuals had the suitable schooling, a lot of them had been employed proper out of faculty with little or no expertise as a result of they work cheaper than skilled scientists. Any sort of research in a hashish lab, significantly pesticide evaluation, is troublesome and exacting. If untrained and unqualified personnel try to carry out these analyses, there are sure to be issues.
I’ve heard lab supervisors and graduate college advisors describe some lab employees as having “a good pair of hands.” This signifies that one particular person following a way can get good outcomes, whereas one other particular person following the identical methodology might get unhealthy outcomes. The particular person with good arms usually has a greater understanding of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and takes further particular care in any respect steps of the method to do issues appropriately. It is feasible within the litigation involving PE and hashish labs that the appliance scientists at PE have sufficient talent and expertise that the tactic in query works of their arms, nevertheless it won’t work within the arms of much less expert and much less skilled those that work in hashish labs. An answer to this drawback can be for PE to supply free onsite coaching programs to the personnel on the labs in order that they’ll get them in control on the tactic. This might be cheaper than the price of continued litigation.
Regulation Rationalization
The regulation of the hashish trade within the United States is a multitude. Each of the fifty states AND the federal authorities are issuing rules, for as much as 51 units of guidelines that hashish labs should comply with. This means there is no such thing as a methodology standardization, so completely different labs use completely different strategies to make the identical measurement, and not surprisingly, get completely different outcomes on the identical samples. The answer to this drawback is for the federal authorities to legalize marijuana and then regulate it like some other medication, ideally below the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Then, just like the approval of some other drug, every firm or lab can submit their strategies for peer assessment by the FDA. Now, the FDA doesn’t endorse particular devices or strategies however will state whether or not a given methodology capabilities as claimed for a selected goal. This would imply most of the people’s well being can be protected as a result of labs will solely be allowed to make use of strategies recognized to work.
Conclusions
The instrument firm PerkinElmer is being sued by a consortium of hashish evaluation labs over claims that one instrument can analyze 60+ pesticides. Part of the issue right here is the stress instrument firms placed on their personnel to shut gross sales, and the inexperience of hashish lab employees in shopping for gear. Solutions to stop related lawsuits sooner or later embrace altering how instrument firm software scientists are compensated, higher coaching for hashish lab personnel, educating hashish labs the best way to correctly vet instrument purchases, and rationalization of hashish trade rules.
References
- September: Smith, B., Welcome to Cannabis Analysis. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2018, 1(3), 10-12.
www.bigsurscientific.com - https://s43720.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PerkinElmer-Complaint-1.16.25.pdf (accessed Oct 30, 2025).
- Smith, B., Lessard, P., and Pearson, R., Inter-Laboratory Variation in Cannabis Analysis: Pesticides and Potency in Distillates. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2019, 2(1), 14-19.
- Smith, B., Inter-Lab Variation within the Cannabis Industry, Part I: Problem and Causes. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2019, 2(2), 12-17.
- Smith, B., Inter-Lab Variation within the Cannabis Industry, Part II: Solutions, Cannabis Science and Technology, 2019, 2(3), 10-14.
- Smith, B., Why Dispensaries Need In-House Testing. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2021, 4(3), 10-12.
- Smith, B., Significant Figures and Margin of Error-Or Why the Fourth Decimal Place in Your Potency Reading is Probably Meaningless. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2020, 3(4), 10–12.
- Smith, B., How Standardized Sample Preparation Can Solve the Inter-Laboratory Variation Problem. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2020, 3(2), 10-15.
- Smith, B., A Proposed Representative Sampling Plan for Hemp Grows. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2020, 3(6), 10-13.
- Home – Spectros Associates https://spectros1.com/ (accessed Oct 7, 2025).
- Smith, B., A Proposed Representative Sampling Plan for Hemp Grows. Cannabis Science and Technology. 2020, 3(6), 10-13.
About the Columnist
Brian C. Smith, PhD, is Founder, CEO, and Chief Technical Officer of Big Sur Scientific. He is the inventor of the BSS sequence of patented mid-infrared based mostly hashish analyzers. Dr. Smith has accomplished pioneering analysis and printed quite a few peer-reviewed papers on the appliance of mid-infrared spectroscopy to hashish evaluation, and sits on the editorial board of Cannabis Science and Technology. He has labored as a laboratory director for a hashish extractor, as an analytical chemist for Waters Associates and PerkinElmer, and as an analytical instrument salesperson. He has greater than 30 years of expertise in chemical evaluation and has written three books on the topic. Dr. Smith earned his PhD on bodily chemistry from Dartmouth College. Direct correspondence to:
How to Cite this Article
Smith, B., Cannabis Testing Labs’ Fraud Lawsuit Against Revvity Health Sciences Highlights Need for Better Lab Regulations, Cannabis Science and Technology, 2025, 8(5), 6-8.