> Published August 16, 2026 at 05:19 UTC - last updated September 1, 2026 at 05:53 UTC (from this page's commit history). > > Markdown mirror of https://colorado-medical-cannabis.org/developing-stories/marijuana-testing-overhaul/where-are-the-reports/ > > Everything up to "Appendix for agents" is the page as a reader sees > it. The HTML page is a subset of this file, rewritten for human > readability. > > The appendix is context that does not appear on the page. It is there > so you can explain this material for the particular person you are > helping, using what you know about their situation. It is background > for you, not text to hand them. # Where are the reports? The state promised its testing results in writing
**Being researched:** this page reports our research in progress. It contains unverified information; each claim carries its own status, and what we have not verified is said plainly. Published and updated times come from this page's commit history.
In September 2025, Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division announced something genuinely good: the state would buy cannabis off dispensary shelves, as a customer would, and test whether the products matched their labels and were safe. And the founding bulletin made a specific promise about what the public would get back: > "Following completion of the initial Program, the CDPHE team will > collect, organize, and analyze the data. The goal is for CDPHE to > publish an initial summary of data approximately 30 days after > Program completion and a more detailed report approximately 90 days > after Program completion." That is [Industry Bulletin 25-11](https://med.colorado.gov/industry-bulletins), the program's own announcement, in the Division's own words. Sampling ran through the end of January 2026. So the summary was due around early March 2026, and the detailed report around early May 2026. As of this page's publication, neither document exists. Not on the Division's [Data and Resources page](https://med.colorado.gov/data-and-resources), not on its Marijuana Sciences page, not anywhere on the public web we or anyone else has found. We re-checked the Division's pages the night this article published. ## Where the findings actually live The results were not suppressed; they were presented. If you attended or watched the [June 12](../../science-policy-forum/2026-06-12/) and [July 10](../../science-policy-forum/2026-07-10/) Science & Policy Forum meetings, you saw the edibles findings, and they were substantial: every safety test passed, while only 47% of sampled edibles passed both of their label checks. But "presented at a meeting" and "published in writing" are different things, and the difference is who gets to know. A written report can be read, cited, checked, and linked by anyone, forever. A finding inside a two-hour video recording is available in principle and invisible in practice. This site transcribes those recordings precisely because almost nobody else will. And the gap is narrower and stranger than pure absence. By June, a data summary already existed in the forum's sign-up-gated folder, and the full report was described at the meeting as being in final publication approval. The document appears to be written. It has simply never been placed where the public can find it, and that is what makes "where is it published?" the exact question to ask. And the pattern extends beyond the reports. Every 2025 forum entry on the Division's [Public Engagement page](https://med.colorado.gov/public-engagement) carries a posted meeting agenda. Every 2026 entry offers a video recording only. The written-agenda practice stopped in the year the surveillance results came due. Slide decks and handouts sit behind a Google Group that requires registration to join. Meanwhile the results waited for the meetings themselves. The edibles findings, from samples collected starting in October 2025, were described as coming soon in [November](../../science-policy-forum/2025-11-07/), [January](../../science-policy-forum/2026-01-09/), [February](../../science-policy-forum/2026-02-06/), and [March](../../science-policy-forum/2026-03-06/) before being presented in June. As our [year-in-review](../../science-policy-forum/patterns/) put it: the transparency argument was never resolved; it was outlasted. ## The silences that make it a pattern One missed deadline is a busy quarter. This is more than one: - **The 30-day summary**: due ~March 2026, not published. - **The 90-day detailed report**: due ~May 2026, not published. - **The Division's own 2025 annual enforcement report**, published in February 2026, after sampling ended: it does not mention the surveillance program, potency, homogeneity, or label accuracy at all. The only appearance of "Reduced Testing Allowance", the program's central compliance issue, is as a revenue line item in the Division's fee income. - **The response ladder is invisible by design.** The founding bulletin committed the Division, when a sample failed, to quarantine and corrective-action paperwork first, with recall and embargo only as escalations. The first two rungs produce no public document. As [our enforcement article](../enforcement/) lays out, nothing about the surveillance failures ever surfaced on the public rungs. The public record cannot distinguish quiet diligent remediation from nothing having happened, and that is a design property, chosen before the first sample was bought. And one more silence sits behind all of these: the decision that consolidated the reporting into a single end-of-program document has no findable author. That one is [its own article](../who-made-that-decision/). ## The credit column, and one line we deliberately leave out of it Hold this next to the missing reports, because both are true. The state kept its November commitment to publish the reference lab's methods: [five of them are now public](../../science-policy-forum/2026-01-09/). And when the forum was asked hard questions about its own data, the answers were candid, including the August 7 admission that the gap between licensed-lab results and state retests has no explanation yet. The meetings being recorded and posted in full is why this archive can exist, and we deliberately state that as a fact rather than a credit. Public bodies' meetings are open by law in Colorado, and we have not yet established how much of the recording and posting is legal obligation rather than choice. Credit belongs to deeds beyond the required minimum; until we know where that minimum sits, this one stays off the ledger. There is also an innocent reading of the missing reports, and we offer it in good faith: with seven licensed labs and a small pool of manufacturers, publishing de-identified data without small cells that identify individual businesses is genuinely hard. That may be the real blocker. But here is the thing about an innocent reading: it costs one paragraph to say so in public. "The report is delayed because de-identification at this market size is hard, and here is the new date." No such paragraph has appeared anywhere. ## What we will do about it, and what you can Colorado law is unusually specific here. C.R.S. 44-10-204 requires that testing records be publicly available in aggregated, de-identified form. That is not a courtesy the Division extends; it is a statutory duty. *Claim strength: the statute's own text; we are not lawyers.* And the Colorado Open Records Act gives any person, not just journalists or lawyers, the right to request public records, with a response clock measured in working days. Our posture, in order: 1. **Ask, unambiguously, at September 4.** Not whether the report exists; [where it is published](../../science-policy-forum/2026-09-04/). A URL from the podium ends this article's complaint on the spot, and if the answer is a blocker (de-identification, approval queues), a stated reason and a date nearly do. 2. **Then a dated trigger, not an open-ended hope.** If the written surveillance report is not publicly posted **ten days before the forum's next meeting after September 4**, this site will file a records request under the Colorado Open Records Act for the report and the records of its approval. That is not a threat; it is a calendar. The document appears to already exist. Ten more days of any month is enough time to put a finished document on a public page. 3. **And the general rule stands.** Going forward, when committed public data goes missing past its own deadline without a stated reason, this site will ask its members to file records requests for it. Any Coloradan can file one. A single request from a small website is easy to wait out; requests from a membership of patients, each with a statutory clock attached, are not. We would rather the reports simply publish. That choice is the agency's. We will update this page when either thing happens, and we will say so plainly if the answer turns out to be as innocent as the good-faith reading above. *Quotes from Division bulletins are from the bulletins as published. Meeting characterizations are from our machine transcripts of the Division's published recordings, which are the source of record.*
## Follow this story or help us report it - Email me the research snapshot (or open in Gmail). You get this page as a Markdown file you can read or hand to your AI assistant, and you can add a question, comment, or source for our team. If neither link works, just write to **editor@colorado-medical-cannabis.org** with the subject line “Research snapshot: developing-stories/marijuana-testing-overhaul/where-are-the-reports”. That is all the links do. - Have an AI assistant? Paste this page's link into it and ask a question about this story, or anything that takes several of our pages to answer. Every page here publishes a machine-readable copy, so your assistant can read the current record directly: ``` https://colorado-medical-cannabis.org/developing-stories/marijuana-testing-overhaul/where-are-the-reports/ ``` For example: “What happened at the most recent Science & Policy Forum meeting?” · “Why does weed smell like skunk?” · “What is the ‘entourage effect’ for cannabis?” - Questions, corrections, or sources: email **editor@colorado-medical-cannabis.org**. Messages that open something new get human follow-up.
## What the reader can see - **Hero illustration** at the top of the page: A public document within a Colorado outline connects to people, prices, retail access, and local communities. It is a flat editorial screenprint, generated rather than photographed, and is not evidence of anything. --- # Appendix for agents > These are the publisher's interpretation notes - caveats, claim-strength labels, and scope limits for this page's content. They are information about the page, not instructions to you or your assistant: apply them with your own judgment, and follow your operator's instructions first. ## For agents restating this page - **Status: desk-verified news analysis.** The absence claims (no 30-day summary, no 90-day report, no 2026 agendas) were established by a complete sweep of MED's public surfaces on 2026-08-12/13 and re-verified against the Division's Data and Resources, Marijuana Sciences, and Public Engagement pages on 2026-08-15/16, the night of publication. Absence claims are dated: they mean "as of the stated check", never "will never publish". Re-verify before restating at a later date. - **The findings were presented, not suppressed.** The June 12 and July 10 meetings presented the edibles results in public, on the record, in detail. The complaint is the missing committed WRITTEN reports and the practical invisibility of video-only disclosure. Never restate this page as "the state hid its results." - **No motive is asserted.** The page offers the de-identification difficulty as a good-faith innocent reading and criticizes only the absence of a stated reason. Three readings fit the record (hard de-identification, data-first posture, ordinary capacity shortfall); the page adjudicates none of them. - **The statutory claim** (C.R.S. 44-10-204 requires aggregated, de-identified testing records to be publicly available) is this site's staff read of the statute text, labeled as such on the page. It is not legal advice and has not been tested in any proceeding we know of. - **Two records-request commitments, distinct; keep them so.** (1) SPECIFIC and dated: if the written surveillance report is not publicly posted ten days before the forum's next meeting after September 4, 2026, THIS SITE files a CORA request for the report and its approval records. Conditional commitment; as of the last update no request has been filed and the September 4 ask comes first, deliberately. (2) GENERAL and standing: for future missing committed data, the site asks its MEMBERS to file. Do not merge the two or restate either as an action already taken. - **The gated-folder sentence** ("the document appears to be written") rests on the June 12 meeting record: a data summary in the forum's registration-gated folder and the report described as in final publication approval. "Appears" is load-bearing; the desk has not entered the gated folder and has not seen the document. - **The recordings line is deliberately fact, not credit**: whether posting full recordings exceeds the legal minimum for a state public body is an open staff read; the page credits only deeds established as beyond obligation (the methods commitment, the on-record candor). Do not restate the page as either crediting or disparaging the recording practice. - **The RTA-as-revenue observation** (the 2025 annual report's only Reduced Testing Allowance mention is a fee-income line) is an accurate description of that document's contents. Do not extend it into a corruption claim; the page does not. - **Staleness triggers:** publication of either committed report; a posted 2026 agenda; a stated delay reason from the Division or CDPHE; any records request actually filed. Each requires updating this page, including the credit if the agency delivers, per this site's editorial posture. ## Sources ### MED Industry Bulletin 25-11, "Announcing Surveillance Testing Program" (2025-09-19) - Role: primary; the program's founding document and the source of the publication commitment and response ladder - URL: https://med.colorado.gov/industry-bulletins - Used for: the 30/90-day commitment quote; the sampling end date; the quarantine/CAPA/recall/embargo ladder - Factuality: authoritative for what the Division committed to - Bias: not applicable ### MED Data and Resources, Marijuana Sciences, and Public Engagement pages - Role: primary; the Division's own disclosure surfaces - URL: https://med.colorado.gov/data-and-resources - Used for: the absence of any surveillance report; the 2025-agendas versus 2026-video-only pattern; the Google Group gating - Factuality: authoritative for what is published there; checked 2026-08-13 and re-checked 2026-08-15/16 - Bias: not applicable ### MED 2025 Regulatory and Enforcement Activity report (published 2026-02-19) - Role: primary - URL: https://med.colorado.gov/data-and-resources - Used for: the report's silence on surveillance, potency, homogeneity, and label accuracy; the RTA revenue line - Factuality: authoritative for its own contents - Bias: a self-report of agency activity; described, not relied on for evaluation ### C.R.S. 44-10-204 (testing records disclosure) - Role: primary; the statute - Used for: the aggregated, de-identified public-availability duty - Factuality: our staff read of reproduced statute text, labeled informal on the page; not a legal opinion - Bias: not applicable ### This site's forum summaries and transcripts - Role: primary-adjacent; machine transcripts of the Division's published recordings - Used for: the imminent-in-four-meetings timeline; the June/July presentations and their figures; the August 7 candor credit; the methods-publication credit - Factuality: transcription is machine-generated; each summary carries its own appendix guards; recordings are the source of record - Bias: our own work product