by Ben Horner
On September 2, the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency issued its newest bulletin with updates to the packaging of cannabis-infused products.
To help eliminate confusion and curb the appeal to those seventeen and under, the CRA has made several updates to the prior guidelines released in April of this year. The first focused on the wording of the actual product. The package description must include words such as “contains cannabis,” “cannabis-infused,” or “contains THC” and be clearly labeled in a font just as large as or larger than the brand name.
Furthermore, any images considered appealing to children are gone. For example, the use of cartoon characters, animals, designs, caricatures, and even certain wordings are forbidden, like simply calling the product a milk chocolate bar or gummy. Now, they must clearly be labeled with “cannabis” or “THC” before the name to correctly describe the product, like “THC Gummies” or “Cannabis-Infused Milk Chocolate.” Also, the required removal of any packaging that has a likeness of that of a known national brand must be done promptly.
With production lines currently being updated to reflect such changes, what are the retail businesses to do with noncompliant products until new ones reach the shelves? The CRA has given them multiple options, such as using nontransparent stickers or tape to cover the trouble areas like smaller logos containing images deemed enticing to children. Retailers could also use nontransparent stickers with “cannabis” or “THC” in a font as large as or larger than the logo to either cover the image or add in front of words such as “gummy” or “chocolate.”
Products that cannot be fixed using stickers must be pulled from the shelves. While inconvenient to all retailers, it serves an even larger blow to medical products. Recreational dispensaries have the option to return unused and unopened edible products, but medical facilities cannot return edibles because of previous legislation forbidding such actions. They will be forced to destroy those products. Products that fall under this category are those with packaging that is entirely cartoonish or resembles national branding because of color and images, like Peanut Budder Cups, for example.
Look for these changes to be hitting your local dispensary soon.
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