ADRIAN, MI — If THC potency had a sound barrier, a new Michigan marijuana strain should be named “Chuck Yeager.”

Instead, it’s named Frogurt, produced by Endo, which operates grow facilities and a retail store in Adrian.

Lab tests shared with MLive show the strain surpassed 41% THC potency, a threshold previously thought impossible to surpass.

The potentially record-breaking weed has garnered a large amount of attention on social media, including from skeptics, who question the validity of the test results.

“I even questioned it,” said Jason Herron, who grew it. Herron, who started growing as a medical marijuana caregiver in 2010 before becoming Endo’s director of cultivation, said the strain was tested three times, each result surpassing 40% — one approaching 42%.

He said his grow’s flower regularly reaches potency in the high 30s, but this is the first over 40%.

“A lot of people are making comments, saying it’s not possible,” Herron said. He’s been accused of spraying the marijuana with high-potency THC or sprinkling on kief — highly potent plant residue — to inflate results.

“I can guarantee none of that happened,” he said. “I don’t ever want to be accused of cheating. That’s what’s bothered me with some of this stuff.

“But at the end of the day, I know what I do in the garden. I don’t cheat.”

Herron said he’s always had the marijuana his company grows tested at North Coast Testing Laboratories in Adrian, a business he fully trusts. According to CRA records, North Coast Testing Laboratories first received its license in July 2020 and has never been the subject of a CRA complaint, according to online regulatory records.

There are online claims the Cannabis Regulatory Agency is double-checking the test results, although representatives wouldn’t confirm or refute rumors.

We can’t comment on open investigations, CRA spokesman David Harns said.

Herron said he has not been notified if the CRA collected additional samples for third-party testing.

The potency questions that Frogurt faces similarly arose when Lume released a strain claiming greater than 40% potency in June 2022.

A now-defunct testing lab retested that strain, called Jenny Kush, that was purchased from a cannabis store and claimed results showed it really contained 26% THC, much less than was advertised.

“If you told me an orange was 50% vitamin C, I just wouldn’t believe you,” said Jackson-based Infinite Chemical Analysis Lab Manager David Egerton, who’s among the Frogurt potency doubters. “We’ve always seen that the kind of upper threshold of THC in cannabis flower tends to be about 35%

“There’s been a number of occasions when we’ve pulled flower that was ostensibly 35% to 40% off the shelf, and we routinely find that the actual number is substantially lower.”

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Egerton said there’s “a thousand different ways to end up with a higher number, but only one real way to do it correctly, and unfortunately, what we’re seeing is really outside the realm of just random error and variation.”

To Egerton and many in the industry, this suggest growers and labs are sometimes conspiring to inflate THC, but why?

It’s about profits.

Because marijuana flower prices are so closely linked to THC amounts — higher the better — reports of potency inflation have plagued nearly every legal marijuana market in the U.S.

Potency is one of the few metrics customers see on packaging, and they equate a higher number to a more intense high, although most say that’s a faulty conclusion.

The huge spike in marijuana potency over recent decades is illustrated by DEA data that found seized and tested marijuana averaged just under 4% THC in 1995, compared to nearly 16% in 2022.

The CRA declined to provide potency data related to the Michigan market.

“We review and audit potency data routinely,” Harns said. “In order to not give away investigative techniques, we’ll not comment further.”

“Uneducated consumers, that’s really how they gauge the product,” Herron said. “THC is not everything, it’s a portion of what gives a strain good quality.”

Despite that, potent marijuana continues to bring in the most profit, which insiders say leads labs and growers to manipulate potency.

The problem is compounded by desperation caused by the industry’s glut of excess marijuana and nosediving prices.

Since labs are beholden to the growers, their business is negatively impacted if the grower moves to another lab seeking higher THC potency results, a phenomenon called “lab shopping.”

Accuracy in the testing world isn’t always lucrative, Egerton said. “It’s been an ongoing problem for several years now, but it doesn’t seem to be getting much better, unfortunately.”

Some techniques Egerton said may be used to artificially inflate test results include: manipulating the sample by intentionally portioning it so that results are higher; adding high-potency material, like kief; using incorrectly calibrated lab equipment and staging samples so higher potency marijuana us used in testing.

In Colorado, an unscientific study released in February spot-checked potency on packaging for 15 marijuana products and found 80% — 12 products — tested more than 15% higher or lower than the listed label potency.

Michigan rules allow potency to vary up to 10% from the test results, meaning a 30% strain, if retested, should register between 27% and 33%.

Meanwhile a 2023 published study that evaulated Cololrado potency, found 70% of 30 tested products inflated THC claims by 15% or more.

It’s a problem “that’s been ongoing for several years,” said Egerton. “And it doesn’t seem to be getting much better, unfortunately.”

Herron stands by his work but said it’s unlikely swaths of 40%-plus marijuana is going to fill store shelves any time soon.

The Frogurt strain may garner attention, but it’s not an optimal strain to grow, since it’s “real finicky and it doesn’t produce much,” Herron said.

Endo sold most of the 6 1/2 pounds produced in the batch at their own store and to a couple other dispensaries. Herron welcomes anyone to double check the results.

“Because at the end of the day, I know I did nothing wrong,” he said.