New York has one of the strictest cannabis testing regimes in the United States. Every batch of regulated cannabis must pass third-party testing before it can reach dispensary shelves, and pesticide testing sits right at the center of that safety framework.
If you grow, process, or manufacture cannabis products in New York, pesticide testing is not just a lab checkbox. It is a core part of license protection, brand protection, and consumer protection. Failing pesticide tests can mean:
In this guide, we break down how pesticide testing for cannabis in NY works, what the OCM pesticide limits mean in practice, where operators most often run into trouble, and how to work with a lab like DRS Testing to avoid failures.
Pesticide testing checks cannabis products for residues of:
Cannabis is a bioaccumulator. It draws chemicals from soil, water, foliar sprays, and even the air. When you concentrate cannabinoids into extracts and vapes, you may also concentrate any pesticides that are present.
New York’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) requires licensed labs to screen cannabis for a defined list of pesticides and compare results to regulatory action levels. If a product:
Then the batch is adulterated and cannot be sold. In some cases, it must be destroyed rather than remediated.
For operators, pesticide testing is therefore both a safety tool and a compliance gate. If you understand the panel and the limits, you can design your IPM program and sourcing around passing on the first attempt.
OCM publishes a Laboratory Testing Limits document that sets action levels for each required analyte. An action level is the maximum concentration that can appear in a cannabis product and still be considered acceptable.
Conceptually:
If a pesticide result is at or below the OCM action level, the batch can pass (assuming all other tests pass).
If a result is above the action level or involves a prohibited pesticide, the batch fails pesticide testing.
New York’s limits sit in the low parts per million or even parts per billion range for many pesticides. For example:
OCM has already issued public recalls where lab results showed “unallowable levels of pesticides,” and products had to be removed from shelves. That is the practical impact of these action levels.
You can think of OCM pesticide limits as:
An OCM permitted cannabis lab will build its pesticide panel around the state’s analyte list. At DRS Testing, the panel is designed for New York regulators and New York cultivation practices.
Here is a simplified view of the types of pesticides we commonly screen for:
|
Class |
Examples |
Typical Use |
|
Fungicides |
Myclobutanil, Boscalid, Tebuconazole |
Powdery mildew, mold control |
|
Pyrethroid insecticides |
Permethrins, Cyfluthrin, Cypermethrin |
Broad spectrum insect control |
|
Natural pyrethrins |
Pyrethrins, Piperonyl butoxide |
“Natural” insecticide formulations |
|
Neonicotinoids |
Imidacloprid, Thiamethoxam, Acetamiprid |
Systemic insect control |
|
Organophosphates |
Chlorpyrifos, Diazinon, Naled |
Legacy insecticides, often prohibited |
|
Carbamates |
Carbaryl, Carbofuran, Oxamyl |
Insect control, often tightly restricted |
|
Plant growth regulators |
Paclobutrazol, Chlormequat chloride |
Growth control, often not allowed in cannabis |
New York addresses these substances in two ways:
When you receive a pesticide COA in New York, each analyte will show:
If you advertise clean or pesticide-free products, this document is your proof.
Modern cannabis labs do not measure pesticides with simple test strips. The chemistry is far more sophisticated.
Most New York labs follow a workflow built around QuEChERS cannabis extraction and tandem mass spectrometry.
QuEChERS stands for Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, Safe. It is a standardized approach that works very well on complex plant matrices like cannabis.
In simplified terms:
The result is a relatively clean extract that contains a wide range of pesticide analytes in a form that instruments can measure.
From there, labs use liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS).
By combining these two platforms, a lab like DRS Testing can:
This is what allows us to confidently say whether a sample passes or fails OCM pesticide limits.
Some pesticides consistently show up as high risk in adult use and medical cannabis. It pays to know them by name.
When heated, myclobutanil can break down into hydrogen cyanide gas. Because cannabis is often smoked or vaporized, regulators have very little tolerance for this pesticide.
If a lab detects myclobutanil in your flower, pre-rolls, vapes, or concentrates, you should assume:
This is why understanding the myclobutanil limit in NY is so important. In practical terms, your limit is “non-detect.”
Many growers assume that “natural” pyrethrins in cannabis or pyrethroid products are safe because they appear on home and garden labels. New York disagrees when it comes to inhaled cannabis.
If you use pyrethrin-based sprays late in flower or in indoor spaces without proper IPM planning, you risk residues above the allowed limit. That is a recipe for failure, especially if concentrates or vapes amplify the contamination.
Older insecticides such as:
They are tightly controlled or completely banned in New York cannabis. Any detection can trigger an automatic failure.
These compounds are toxic even at low levels. They also send a bad signal to regulators about controls and sourcing. You should avoid them entirely in your cannabis supply chain.
From what we see in the lab and in public recall notices, failures usually cluster around a few patterns.
Operators sometimes inherit old IPM practices from other crops. They may:
This is a fast way to trip New York’s pesticide testing thresholds. If a product is not clearly allowed for cannabis under New York rules, do not use it.
Pesticides applied late in the flowering cycle or after harvest have little time to dissipate or break down. That is especially true in indoor environments with less rainfall and fewer natural degradation factors.
Flowers treated shortly before harvest are much more likely to fail testing. So are post-harvest treatments on hanging plants or dried buds.
Extraction does not always remove pesticides. In some cases, it concentrates them.
A flower lot that is just under the limit may produce a distillate that is well above the limit. That is why processors need to know:
You cannot afford to turn a marginal flower batch into a failed oil batch.
When OCM investigates a pesticide failure, regulators will look at:
Missing or inconsistent records make it harder to show that an issue was an isolated mistake. That can increase regulatory risk.
You cannot control every variable in agriculture, but you can significantly reduce your pesticide risk with disciplined systems.
Here are practical steps we encourage clients to follow:
Document your program and review it regularly as guidance evolves.
If you know New York’s action levels sit in the low ppm range, formulate and blend conservatively.
Plan to meet the limit with a comfortable margin.
Choose a lab that:
A strong lab partner will alert you to patterns and help you see issues before OCM does.
At DRS Testing, we built our pesticide testing service specifically for New York cannabis operators.
When you send us samples, you get:
You can learn more about our dedicated service on the pesticide testing page and explore related educational content on the DRS Testing blog.
Pesticide testing in New York is not going to get looser over time. If anything, limits will stay tight and enforcement will remain active as the market matures.
For cannabis businesses, that means:
When you design your cultivation, sourcing, and processing decisions around passing pesticide testing on the first try, you protect your inventory, your license, and your brand.
You do the growing.
We will handle the data that keeps your products on shelves.