Pull Back the Curtain

A CT CannaTimes Editorial

Published: October 2, 2026

I keep coming back to the same question….What is it actually going to take for Connecticut’s regulated cannabis market and legacy cannabis community to trust each other?

Because I don’t think another enforcement action is going to do it. I don’t think another press release about eliminating the illicit market is going to do it. And I definitely don’t think telling people who bought cannabis from the same grower for 15 years that they should suddenly trust something because there’s a regulated sticker on the package is going to do it.

There is something the legacy market has always had that legalization has struggled to recreate…personal accountability.

If I bought cannabis from somebody I knew and something was wrong with it, I knew who to call. Their reputation was attached to that bag.

It’s like buying eggs from your neighbor instead of a supermarket chain. Your neighbor gives you bad eggs, you walk down the street and say, “Dude, something is wrong with these eggs.” They’re probably going to replace them. More importantly, they’re probably going to go back to the chickens and figure out what the hell happened.

At the supermarket, you get a refund. Maybe a coupon. You probably never learn what happened, where it happened or whether anyone actually fixed it.

That’s the difference. Regulation can create compliance. It cannot manufacture trust.

PULL BACK THE CURTAIN

That’s why I don’t understand how closed-off legal cannabis remains.

Where are the windows into Connecticut’s grow rooms? Where are the videos showing consumers how their concentrates are actually extracted? Where are the cultivators explaining their environmental controls?

What are you spraying? What aren’t you spraying? How are you preventing mold? What happens when Aspergillus shows up? What happens when a batch fails? Was it remediated? How? Did you figure out why it failed in the first place?

These aren’t “gotcha” questions. They’re exactly the questions you should want consumers asking if you’re proud of what you’re producing.

I’ve seen another way of doing this.

Vela Cannabis in Seattle literally built transparency into its dispensary. Customers could look through windows into cultivation, processing and extraction areas. The production of cannabis wasn’t treated like some proprietary secret consumers weren’t supposed to see.

Why can’t we do that here?

And transparency doesn’t just mean showing people pretty flowering plants under LED lights. It means being honest about the uncomfortable stuff too.

PREVENT THE PROBLEM INSTEAD OF CLEANING UP THE PRODUCT

Connecticut Cannabis Times has been pretty outspoken about remediation. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I’m not particularly interested in cannabis being blasted after harvest so it can get across the testing finish line.

But here’s where I think people misunderstand the conversation: Being against post-harvest remediation doesn’t mean being against microbial prevention. Those are completely different things.

Take Matt Iarussi and Canna Klean in Massachusetts.

Matt has spent years cultivating cannabis, including commercial cultivation, and Canna Klean works specifically on contamination problems inside cannabis facilities.

What I like about their approach is incredibly simple… Don’t wait until the weed fails testing and then figure out how to clean the weed. Figure out why the weed is getting contaminated in the first place.

Canna Klean brings in an independent Certified Industrial Hygienist to take environmental samples throughout a facility. Those samples go to an accredited laboratory. Then they map the contamination.

They look at sanitation SOPs, cultivation practices, drying, HVAC and dehumidification. They look at whether the building itself is the problem. Contaminated areas can be isolated with negative-air containment and HEPA-filtered air scrubbers, cleaned, and then tested again before the area is cleared.

That is a fundamentally different philosophy from: Grow it → test it → fail it → remediate the finished flower → sell it.

It’s: Find the source → fix the environment → grow cleaner cannabis.

And this isn’t just theoretical. Iarussi worked with 54 Green Acres, an outdoor cannabis farm in Oregon facing stringent Aspergillus testing. The work focused on the drying facility, air quality, cleanliness, crop health and processing environment.

According to the published case study, 37 of 39 samples passed Aspergillus testing without post-harvest flower remediation.

That’s the kind of thing I want Connecticut growers talking about.

WHY AREN’T THESE PEOPLE IN THE SAME ROOM?

Not because Matt has every answer. Not because legacy growers have every answer. And not because regulated cultivators don’t know what they’re doing.

Because everybody knows something the other side doesn’t.

There are legacy growers in Connecticut who have spent 20 or 30 years learning what powdery mildew looks like before most people can see it. There are people who understand airflow because they learned the hard way. People who know drying rooms, genetics and soil. People who know what consumers actually notice when something is wrong.

And there are people in the regulated industry who understand commercial HVAC, environmental monitoring, laboratory testing, clean-room principles, compliance systems and running cultivation at a scale most home growers have never attempted.

Why in the world aren’t these people in the same room?

Why does legalization have to mean one group wins and the other group disappears?

What would happen if, instead of asking law enforcement how to destroy the legacy market, Connecticut’s cannabis companies started asking: Who are the best growers in that market? Who are the best extractors? Who understands contamination? Who understands the customer? Who has been solving these problems without a compliance department for 20 years?

And then called them.

Hire them. Consult with them. Bring them into the grow. Put them at the table when you’re writing preventative SOPs.

Hell, make one your sales director.

Because if the regulated market genuinely wants the people who still buy legacy cannabis to come over, you can’t demand their trust. You have to earn it.

SHOW US

Regulated companies can start by pulling back the curtain.

Show us the grow. Show us the extraction room. Show us the drying room. Publish what preventative treatments you’re using.

If you remediate cannabis, say so. If you irradiate it, say so. If you don’t remediate anything, tell us how you’re accomplishing that. If you had a contamination problem and fixed it, tell us what happened and how you fixed it.

That’s not weakness. That’s accountability that builds trust.

And Connecticut Cannabis Times genuinely wants an answer from the regulated market:

What are you willing to make public that isn’t public today?

Would you open your cultivation facilities to tours? Would you disclose remediation? Would you publish environmental testing information? Would you explain your preventative measures?

Would you sit down with experienced legacy growers and actually listen to them?

Because maybe bridging this divide doesn’t start with another law. Maybe it starts with the regulated market saying: “Come inside. Here’s how we grow. Show us how you did it. Let’s figure out what each of us knows.”

That’s a cannabis industry I’d trust a hell of a lot more.

The Office of the Cannabis Ombudsman reported in June that Theraplant LLC and Jananii had adopted its suggested green-check “Never Remediated” labeling. That’s exactly the kind of disclosure consumers should not have to dig through a COA or FOIA request to find. We’d like to hear from Theraplant LLC and Jananii on how this was approached. Please send us a message if anyone can get us in touch.

In the past RI Guy provided us some valuable insight in comments, we’d love if you’d tag up some people who might help facilitate these conversations, and message us if you prefer not to be tagged here.

Also if anyone can get us in touch with KannaClean we’d appreciate that.