Senate committee hears bill to replace Nevada’s 5‑pound cannabis testing cap with ASTM sliding scale

State Senator Edgar Flores (D–Senate District 2) presented Senate Bill 157 to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, asking the panel to replace Nevada’s statutory 5‑pound lot cap for cannabis testing with a sliding scale tied to consensus sampling standards from ASTM International.

The bill’s sponsors and industry supporters said the 5‑pound standard is arbitrary, makes testing more expensive and encourages consumers to buy unregulated products. Opponents including at least one Nevada laboratory owner said the change needs more technical vetting and could harm smaller operators if large lots fail testing.

Supporters described the proposal as a safety‑neutral, science‑based change that will lower costs without reducing test stringency. Will Adler of Silver State Government Relations, speaking for Green Thumb Industries, and David Valancourt, CEO of GMP Collective and vice chair of ASTM International Committee D37 on cannabis, told the committee Nevada already follows much of ASTM’s sampling and validation guidance and that the new bill would align Nevada’s lot definitions with national consensus practice.

Dr. Glenn Miller, a longtime analytical chemistry and environmental toxicology faculty member at the University of Nevada and a former member of the Independent Laboratory Advisory Committee (ILAC), told the committee Nevada’s 5‑pound limit is an outlier with no technical basis. “There is no basis for having a 5‑pound lot, and Nevada is an outlier right now,” Miller said. He said increasing lot sizes and applying representative subsampling will not raise risk but will reduce cost and discourage purchases from unregulated sources.

Proponents pointed to regulatory language adopted in Washington State as a model: a sliding scale that increases lot size as sample counts scale with lot weight so subsampling remains representative. David Valancourt described ASTM standard D8334 (cannabis flower sampling) and broader ASTM validation work as the scientific basis for the sliding scale and argued regulators should “test smarter, not harder.”

Industry groups and operators filed in‑person and phone testimony in support. Blake Martin, executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Association, said the current requirement forces cultivators to split single harvests into multiple small lots, creating operational inefficiency and extra testing expense. Several licensed operators and trade consultants — Deep Roots Harvest, Thrive Cannabis Marketplace, Cure Cannabis Solutions and others — urged the committee to approve language that lets smaller producers keep smaller lots while allowing larger harvests to test as single lots under representative sampling.

Opposition testimony came from Alec Garcia, one of the owners of an independent compliance testing laboratory in northern Nevada. Garcia said the Cannabis Compliance Board (CCB) has previously examined lot size changes in multiple years and that laboratory and sampling details — homogenization, number of test points, subsampling protocols and lab regulation — must be fully vetted before the Legislature changes statutory lot definitions. He warned that moving directly from 5 to much larger lot sizes would disproportionately benefit large multistate operators and could be a “death sentence” for smaller facilities if a large lot fails testing.

No formal committee vote was taken on SB157 at the hearing. Sponsors told the committee they are open to continuing technical dialogue with the CCB, laboratories and other stakeholders.

The bill remains under consideration and the committee collected written materials and follow‑up exhibits from witnesses for the record.