The California Cannabis Packaging and Labeling Mess Will Soon Begin

In early December, California’s cannabis regulators released their proposed final regulations. If the regulations aren’t changed, it’s expected that they will take effect at some point this month, or shortly after. These regulations have some pretty important changes from the current readopted emergency regulations. One of the notable areas of change is the packaging and labeling requirements. In spite of some of the changes, there is almost no grace period for compliance. If the regulations go into effect as is, requirements could change overnight.

For some background, the regulations between the agencies permit manufacturers to package and label manufactured cannabis products such as vape cartridges or edibles, and distributors to package and label cannabis flower. Retailers are not permitted to do any labeling. In large part, this will remain unchanged. But the requirements for different license types will change significantly.

First is child-resistant packaging, which is the only major packaging change that has any kind of transitional period. The proposed final regulations of the California Department of Public Health (“CDPH”), which regulates manufacturers, postpone the child-resistant packaging requirements until January 1, 2020. The Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”), which regulates a number of license types including distributors and retailers, likewise will not require distributors to package cannabis goods in child-resistant packages. However, retailers are forced to ensure that any products sold on their premises are in child-resistant exit packaging until 2020, at which point the manufacturers will need to start providing child-resistant packaging.

Second, the specific labeling requirements will change, and most dramatically for manufacturers. There will be a number of specific changes, including:

• For manufacturers, if product containers are separable from the outermost packaging (i.e., a product container is inside of a box), then the product container must also contain certain information that would be required on the outermost layer. For edibles, topicals, suppositories, and orally consumed concentrates, all primary panel information—with the exception of the cannabinoid content—must be on the product package. For inhaled products (i.e., dab, shatter, or wax), the Universal Symbol must be stamped on the product package.
• The manufacture regulations include specific primary and informational panel label requirements for pre-rolls and packaged cannabis flower that are similar to the requirements for manufactured cannabis goods, which must provide certain information, have the universal symbol and government warnings, and identify the cultivator of the flower.
• For packaged manufactured goods, the DPH will no longer require primary paneling to include THC and CBD content. Instead, the proposed rules state that cannabinoid content “may” be placed on the primary panel packaging. The DPH will allow distributors to label packaging with the correct cannabinoid content after required laboratory testing. Cannabinoid content labeling will include very specific requirements that will vary from product to product.
• The DPH is prohibiting labels for edibles to contain pictures of the food product inside the packaging, and from making false or misleading claims that products are organic.

Crucially, other than the child-resistant packaging requirements, there will be no transition period in these proposed final regulations. The packaging and labeling rules in earlier emergency regulations included explicit transitional periods for prior modifications, but the proposed final regulations of both the CDPH and BCC specifically delete these transitional period requirements.

What the lack of transitional periods means is that these proposed regulations will change labeling requirements overnight if they are implemented. This will create major issues for distributors and retailers who have products in their possession that suddenly don’t conform to the new final regulations.

For example, retailers cannot accept or sell products except as they will appear in their final form and cannot do any packaging or labeling themselves. This means that products must be labeled in accordance with BCC and CDPH standards. If a package or label is suddenly insufficient, then retailers may be prohibited from selling those products.

Distributors may be in a similar bind. While distributors can package and label cannabis flower, their ability under these proposed final regulations to package or label manufactured cannabis products is very limited: They essentially can only correct labels’ THC content if testing confirms it was inaccurate. The regulations don’t seem to allow distributors, for example, to add required warnings that are not present on packaging.

In sum, if these regulations become final, there may suddenly be a host of products that overnight are not compatible with the regulations. And because these regulations may become final very soon, getting products into compliance now is critical.