Arizona: from grow to shelf, what ends up on the label

Step by step: Arizona

1. Step 1: Grow / harvest batch (Cultivation site) One adult-use license covers one store plus at most one off-site grow and one off-site manufacturing site. The grow harvests a batch (one strain, planted and harvested together) and records it, including every chemical additive used, in its inventory control system. This becomes the label's strain, batch number and license number.
2. Step 2: The licensee pulls one sample (Cultivation site) Until passing results arrive, the batch is stored away from product offered for sale. The establishment collects one sample per batch under the ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 sampling standard (a sample thief, star-pattern sampling, every tenth unit, or quartering), labels it with its license number, strain, batch and the tests requested, and submits it to a licensed lab.
3. Step 3: Licensed lab analysis (Testing facility) An ADHS-licensed lab, ISO/IEC 17025 accredited and approved for each analyte, tests the sample as received, within 10 days: E. coli, Salmonella, Aspergillus, heavy metals, 56 pesticides and growth regulators, and potency, plus residual solvents on processed products and mycotoxins on extract-based ones.
4. Step 4: Final report, with a photo (Testing facility) Within 10 days of receiving the sample, the lab sends its final report: results, methods, test dates, the director's signature and a color photo of the sample as submitted. This unlocks the label's total THC and total CBD. A shopper can ask to see the results before buying.
5. Step 5: Pass / fail (ADHS) A pass releases the batch. After a fail, the licensee has 7 days to send the rest of the same sample to up to two other independent labs; if either confirms the failure, the batch is remediated where possible or destroyed, and a remediated batch is sampled and tested again. ADHS inspects every lab at least once a year.
6. Step 6: Package + label (Establishment (packaging)) The label carries the license number, amount, strain and batch, the form and weight, total THC and total CBD from the lab, and the long ADHS warning. The label claim must sit within ±20% of the tested value, or the label has to be revised.
7. Step 7: QR code to the lab report (Establishment (packaging)) Arizona requires no THC symbol. Instead, since the end of 2023, every package carries a QR code to a page with the strain, the harvest date, who grew it and who prepared it for sale, the extraction method if any, and a link to the lab's final report.
8. Step 8: Retail sale (Retail site) The retail agent checks age and sells at most 1 ounce, no more than 5 grams of it as concentrate, and the product leaves in child-resistant packaging. Edibles are capped at 10 mg THC per serving and 100 mg per package.