New Mexico cannabis testing requirements

Required tests

• Potency
• Pesticides
• Residual solvents
• Microbials
• Foreign matter

ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation

Not required. 16.8.2.44 NMAC: labs file an initial demonstration of capability for each test. At renewal, ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation covering the test is one of three ways to show continuing capability; the others are ISO/IEC 17043 proficiency testing or repeating the initial demonstration.

Notes

• Rules: 16.8.7.15 NMAC (required testing, amended effective 31 August 2026) and 16.8.2.43 to 16.8.2.48 NMAC (testing lab licensing and minimum lab standards).
• The 31 August 2026 amendment requires potency, visual inspection, microbial and pesticide tests for every product category, adds residual solvents for edibles, tinctures and topicals, and ends the pesticide exemption for products made from tested concentrates.
• Residual solvents: products made with volatile solvents, edibles and other oral products, tinctures, topicals and other inhalables; 14 solvents listed.
• Microbials: E. coli (100 CFU/g, or STEC instead), Salmonella and Aspergillus flavus, fumigatus, niger and terreus (fail if present in 1 g).
• Edibles made from fresh cannabis with water activity of 0.65 or more are also tested for STEC, Clostridium botulinum and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
• Visual inspection at 40x: no insects, hair, eggs or feces, and no more than 2% sand, soil, mold or rocks in 1 g.
• Pesticides: 15 listed residues with separate inhalable and non-inhalable limits, plus 0.02 µg/g for any pesticide not registered with NMDA for use on cannabis.
• Potency: THC, THCA, CBD and CBDA, reported with total THC and total CBD.
• Heavy metals, mycotoxins and water activity are not required tests. Labs must report arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury at 0.4 µg/g or more, and aflatoxins plus ochratoxin A at 20 µg/kg or more, found in other testing.
• Growers must test non-municipal irrigation water quarterly and in-ground soil yearly for arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury (16.8.7.17 NMAC).
• The testing lab collects the samples (16.8.7.15 NMAC, Subsection C).
• Adult-use sales began on 1 April 2022 under the Cannabis Regulation Act (2021), which put adult-use and medical businesses under one CCD framework.