Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Market And Lab Data topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
New Jersey Cannabis Commission flags lab anomalies as sales rise; licensing totals top 3,000
Summary
Acting Executive Director Chris Riggs reported the commission surpassed 3,000 portal submissions and detailed rising sales and harvesting volumes while flagging an investigation into possible inflated THCA and unusual mold test distributions in laboratory results.
Acting Executive Director Chris Riggs told the Cannabis Regulatory Commission on July 30 that more than 3,000 applications have been submitted through the agency portal and that 2,300 have been approved, with additional applications at varying stages of review. "We finally hit that 3,000 mark," Riggs said during the executive‑director report.
Riggs said the commission recently approved 1,629 conditional recreational licenses, 451 conditional annual conversions, 279 annual licenses and 84 expanded alternative treatment centers, producing roughly 357 total operating licenses and permits across adult‑use and medical programs. He also reported patient counts and provider figures: "As of 07/15/2025, total patients are a little over 58,000; our caregivers are a little under 4,000 and our doctors are right around 1,500," Riggs said.
On market trends, Riggs noted a 17.3% year‑over‑year increase in total sales from June 2024 to June 2025 but said prices for bud and flower have fallen. "Adult use bud and flower is at $8.58 per gram," he said, adding that year‑over‑year price changes have pushed downward while sales volumes rose; the commission reported nearly a 40% increase in pounds harvested over the same period.
Riggs also announced further review of laboratory data after staff saw a rise in reported THCA averages and an unusual distribution in microbial fail rates. "In 2023 the average was 24.21. Now in 2025, it's 27.21%... We are looking into that," Riggs said, referring to THCA percentage averages. He added that mold fail rates dropped from 3.7% in 2023 to about 1% in 2025 and said the data show a sharp cliff at roughly 100,000 CFUs per gram that warrants investigation.
Why it matters: the combination of increased throughput, shifting product prices and potential lab‑report anomalies affect consumer safety, product labeling and enforcement priorities. Riggs said the commission has opened inquiries to understand whether changes stem from lab reporting practices, testing methodologies or market factors and pledged to share more findings as investigations progress.
What's next: the commission said it will continue to monitor sales, price, harvest and testing data and pursue targeted investigations into lab reporting and testing methodology.
