Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part I: Misleading Information for Manufacturers
Even if cannabis products pass the numerous testing requirements to ensure they are safe for consumption, there is still a substantial risk that they will be rejected by retailers. California distributor Nabis compiled data on any and all deliveries that dispensaries refused to accept, discovering that over 50% of rejections are caused by compliance issues.
The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA) includes basic requirements for how cannabis and cannabis products must be packaged before sale. But with 33% of order rejections resulting from non-compliant packaging or labeling, there is clearly still a lack of understanding within the industry as to how MAUCRSA packaging and labeling rules should be applied to physical products.
The California Department of Health’s Confusing Packaging & Labeling Guides
The CDPH released three guides, one for packaging cannabis product and two for labeling cannabis product. However, some of the information in the former directly contradicts the latter, greatly increasing the risk for a noncompliant final product.
According to the CDPH Packaging Requirements for Cannabis and Cannabis Products, packaging requirements do not have to appear on a product’s outermost layer of packaging:
However, the CDPH Requirements for Labeling are more rigid:
If a product’s outermost layer of packaging has all the necessary labeling information, but the compliant, tamper evident packaging is a different layer, consumers will remove that packaging with those labeling details and be left with a tamper evident and child resistant package that has no information on its contents. Skeptical dispensaries concerned with the confusion that could result from layered packaging could ultimately reject this kind of product. It’s discrepancies like these that contribute to continued frustration within the legal cannabis market.
How to Solve this Problem
Since any reduction of labeling and packaging problems will lead to fewer retailer rejections and greater profits for brands and manufacturers, it’s in a cannabis manufacturer’s best interest to have all of their labeling information and tamper evident mechanisms on a product’s outermost layer of packaging.
The Next Packaging Problem
Tamper evident and child resistant packaging is required, but the rules on this are changing from 2019 to 2020. An explanation of what this packaging requirement means for cannabis brands and manufacturers appears in our next post: Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part II: Child-Resistant Packaging & Other Upcoming Regulations.
This post is part of a series on compliant packaging and labeling.
See other parts of our guide:
Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part II: Child-Resistant Packaging & Other Upcoming Regulations
Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part III: Compliant Product Labels for Flower and Flower-Only Pre-Rolls
Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part IV: Compliant Product Labels for Manufactured Cannabis Products
