It’s no secret that potency drives the Cannabis market, even though patients and producers alike have been screaming about the plant’s many other beneficial compounds, like terpenes, for 10-plus years. This trend — driven by a lack of general consumer education and a viciously volatile market where producers are forced to compete at all costs — has snowballed into a situation where it seems no side is winning.
High Stakes and Numbers
Breeders and growers are discarding unique profiles in favor of culling cultivars that produce potency. Shops are stuck with stale shelves that won’t sell. Consumers are paying premiums for results they can’t trust and, more importantly, missing out on a pivotal part of the plant’s experience. Cannabis testing labs are at the forefront of this issue, stuck in the same cycle of survival where potency pays the bills.
To dive deeper into this problem, we sought the expertise of Taylor Pearce. He is currently the lab director at Green Leaf Lab (Sacramento), and he has a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and over 12 years of testing experience (spanning four companies) in Oregon, Arizona and California.
A Potency Problem
Similar problems plague all of these markets. From California to Arkansas, class action lawsuits have been filed against brands and labs alike for inflated THC numbers. In California, a 2022 independent study reported on by Cannabis Industry Journal showed that out of 150 products tested, 87% were greater than “10% deviant of their labeled values.” Legalized states around the nation are facing the same story, with state reference laboratories continuing to find flaws in private-party potency results.
Pearce adds that testing standards lacking state-to-state fluidity and scientific language stunt the evolution of overall testing procedures, while market pressure pushes producers to “shop around” for labs more likely to inflate numbers.
With such great variance from lab to lab Pearce adds that, “potency results vary so much, you can’t even rely on them.”
In 2024, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission investigated seven of the state’s (then) 11 licensed testing labs for inflating THC results, citing three. One year later, the problem persisted. A 2025 report by the OLCC and the state’s Cannabis Reference Laboratory found that “third-party laboratory results were 13% higher” than CRL’s findings.
For consumers, this is bad news. If the only metric the masses rely on is unreliable, then what markers are actually meaningful?
Untapped Terpene Treasures
After years of what Pearce accurately calls “lukewarm public attention,” terpenes have failed to gain real traction among the masses as a marker, largely due to a lack of state-mandated testing and, therefore, consumer information. But these compounds offer a vibrant picture of aroma, flavor, effect and overall experience. Terpene testing has caught on in multiple markets as a way for concentrates, in particular, to set themselves apart. But it’s up to brands to push the trend and labs to inform them of their testing options.
Pearce acknowledges that this has its own obstacles, like the same risk of percentage inflation and the limitations of the tests commonly requested. His proposed solution: relative abundance terpene testing.
A Full Fingerprint
The relative abundance method doesn’t focus on exact percentages of top terpenes, but on whether a terpene is “present at statistically significant levels.” This provides a much deeper look at a profile’s unique “fingerprint.”
“I think the approach to terpene testing is wrong. We’re often asked to look for the top two or three terpenes, which generally results in the same ten or so common compounds across strains,” Pearce shared. “The more interesting question is: What is the full terpene fingerprint? That’s where you really start to see how two strains with similar THC can have such different effects.”
If we can’t count on THC as consumers, a more comprehensive snapshot is necessary. The latest research points to the presence of nearly 120 terpenes in Cannabis. Limiting our understanding of a profile to THC and just two or three terpenes restricts our ability to wield its effects, whether you’re looking at this from a marketability or medical perspective.
