Kentucky: from grow to dispensary, what the label has to show

Step by step: Kentucky

1. Step 1: Cultivator closes the harvest batch (Cultivator) Medical cannabis has been legal in Kentucky since 1 January 2025, under the Office of Medical Cannabis in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. A licensed cultivator splits the harvest into batches of no more than 20 pounds (50 pounds for material sold for concentrate) and tests each one after harvest and before any sale or transfer. Once sampled, the batch may not be altered.
2. Step 2: Sample: a primary and a reserve (Business sampler (lab SOP)) A sample is drawn at random by an employee or agent of the cannabis business or an authorized agent of the cabinet. A business employee must follow the contracted lab’s standard operating procedures for sampling and chain of custody, and collect enough to split into a primary and a reserve sample of equal size.
3. Step 3: Safety compliance facility (Safety compliance facility) Only a lab licensed by the cabinet as a safety compliance facility may test, under a written contract with each business, and it may send samples on only to another licensed Kentucky facility. It tests total THC and cannabinoids, terpenoids, pesticides, heavy metals, microbes, mycotoxins, water activity and yeast and mold, plus solvents and vitamin E acetate for production batches.
4. Step 4: COA: one pass or fail for the batch (Safety compliance facility) The facility issues a certificate of analysis for each batch sample, reporting an overall pass or fail for the entire batch, and enters the results in the state’s electronic monitoring and seed-to-sale tracking system. It keeps the reserve sample for at least 45 days and hands it to the cabinet within three business days of a request.
5. Step 5: Fail: reserve, remediate or destroy (Office of Medical Cannabis) A failed sample may be reanalyzed using the reserve. Flower that fails water activity can be dried and cured and retested, a microbial failure may be sterilized, and a product over the THC limit or high in solvents can be reworked, but only twice. Failing for pesticides, heavy metals, mycotoxins, yeast and mold or vitamin E acetate makes the batch waste, as does a harvest batch over the THC limit.
6. Step 6: Package + label (Cultivator) Packaging is child-resistant, tamper-evident and opaque, and shows the state’s standardized symbol in navy blue. The label gives the batch identifier, the lab’s name, license number and test date, the packaging date, total THC, terpenes and CBD in percent, the National Poison Control Center number, and bold statements in writing at least 1/16 inch tall.
7. Step 7: Dispensary sells to cardholders (Dispensary) A licensed dispensary sells only to registered cardholders. If it learns of a defect or quality issue, it must immediately email the cabinet and tell the business it got the cannabis from, and it may not dispose of that product before the cabinet agrees. Businesses can also ask for a voluntary package and label review, which the cabinet aims to finish within 21 days.