Lab Shopping

Lab shopping is the practice of routing samples to laboratories known for generous potency readings or lenient contaminant findings. It is the ugly incentive under potency inflation: labs are paid by the producers they test, and a lab that reads high attracts business. Signals a buyer can actually use: a vendor whose COAs all come from one lab with a reputation for high reads, potency numbers that consistently sit above what the strain plausibly delivers, and — the good sign — vendors who publish full panels from well-regarded accredited labs even when the numbers are merely honest.