Cannabis Packaging Rules Proposed by Health Canada
The Canadian government has released a new set of temporary regulations following public input, which is meant to guide LPs (licensed producers) with their preparations for legal sales of cannabis, currently set for a July rollout. The rules also set limits for “micro-cultivators”.
Like most governing bodies making moves to liberalize cannabis laws, Canada is working hard to ensure that cannabis is as unsexy as possible, probably in the vain hope this will somehow slow cannabis consumption, prevent teen pregnancy, and finally end the opiate epidemic.
In this case, new packaging rules have come out for Canadian cannabis businesses, and apparently cannabis is intended to look as boring as the regulations which government its appearance. Packaging for cannabis must be plain and issued with health warnings.
(Sorry, Health Canada, unattractive packaging isn’t going to stop cannabis use either.)
From CBC:
The regulations state cannabis packaging can’t display florescent or metallic “colours and the colours that are used must contrast with those of the official cannabis symbol — meant to warn the consumer about the presence of marijuana’s active ingredients — and the yellow background of the Health Canada warnings.
“The proposed restrictions also stipulate that only one additional branding element – aside from the brand name itself – can be displayed on the tamper-proof and child-proof packaging. If that additional element is a slogan, the lettering can’t be bigger than the font of the health warning, while any logo must be the same size as, or smaller than, the standardized cannabis symbol.
“The federal government is also banning inserts inside the cannabis packages themselves — a rule meant to prevent producers and processors from getting around the limits on branding and marketing.”
Health Canada is also requiring labels that include warnings for youth and pregnant women, caution against operating machinery or driving a car, and notices about mental health and addiction.
The new rules also give clearer definitions of “micro-cultivator” and “micro-processor”, restricting plant canopies to 200 square meters for micro-cultivators, and placing an annual limit of 600 kilograms of dried plant to be produced by a “micro-processor”.
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