I haven’t done much work with operational companies in IL, but find it hard to believe that only 7% of products fail when their mold threshold is 1,000 CFU/g (compare to 100k for Michigan and 1 million for Connecticut). There are a million ways to get around testing, and with only 22 growers there’s zero chance that anyone blows the whistle on this. Can anyone on the ground confirm how bad the product situation is, either pertaining to quality or safety?
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They are allowed to test without a full panel prior to full testing. This allows them to get rid of most of their mold ridden material into distillate and edibles before final testing is done and goes to the state database.
As someone who has operated in several of the states mentioned in the article, there are few issues with each states testing Issues. For Example, WA first required sterile COAs (even beneficial bacteria could cause a fail) then later raised their microbial limit, but still does not require pesticide, or heavy metal tests. Illinois Had a 10 ppm Residual solvent level for hydrocarbon extracts (good luck keeping your monoterps while removing the last 1000ppm of solvent)
The limits are state specific, some states are better or worse, but there are issues on the regulator level (not knowing the proper limits), as well as at the producer level (gaming the tests). for example; a flower with aspergillus that has been irradiated may pass microbial plating tests for low CFU, but may fail for aflatoxins.
as mentioned, hopefully the 7-20+% of material that is contaminated will be extracted, remediated, tested and manufactured, but only way to guarantee it is to vote with consumers dollars. use Data for purchase decisions (instead of buying hyped up names) and only support companies that are transparent with their QA/QC. for myself, I only purchase tested product with labeled terpene tests (I Love organic cultivation, but require tests because yeast triggers my allergies, and some terpenes do not pair with my medical conditions)
Here I got some test paper and agair let me at them it would give a better test. What do you think they test it all its all a scam.
After festering for years in the #2 spot in the ranking of most corrupt states, Illinois is finally #1. (Take that, new jersey!)
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The quality of product in Illinois is shit, but that’s what happens when you issue 20 licenses to people with millions of dollars and political connections, but no growing experience. 
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I bet we have 22 producers just in a couple miles in some places here in P-town…
But I agree with the @McWest above that they are sending failed batches to extracts. Pretesting with an R&D is the best explanation.
They’d call it “mold remediation” if they hit it with UV sterilization and still used the moldy weed that failed initial compliance testing but it’s really expensive cleaning up after shit growers that way.
Here’s some recent failures we observed in a tincture, on flower, and the last one was trim:
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Illinois is also getting sued for not following their own social equity program guidelines.
i want to be legal here but its tough. from what i hear the bud is not great and its all small buds. I went into a dispensary and they didnt even let me look at buds, it was pics on a tablet. and they had 3 kinds of flower. my buddy asked them why its all small buds and they actually told him they make the big buds into fresh frozen hash? Mold? Ive seen the illinois cbd and its like mexi schwag.
I was thinking they were making hash/rosin for the premium, but I don’t see it on any Illinois menus. Could very well be molding the tops
this story was front page news today on the paper. I got a dehumidifier and only had a touch of mold on a bud or 2 this round, it was on the bleached part of the bud that got too close to a light. just a couple tops.
This is why my Illinois peeps are so willing to make that hour drive around the lake 
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The problem is that putting including terpene/etc results on your packaging does not ensure transparency - unless you’ve worked with labs in a given market you don’t know if their results are real or not.
