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 in California. 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.

What should that packaging look like?

The CDPH provided the state’s cannabis industry with compliant packaging guides and checklists, but it can be difficult to picture how those requirements translate to information on physical products. Pure Beauty’s packaging (shown below) serves as a perfect example of how the CDPH’s requirements should be implemented. These guidelines apply to all cannabis flower, pre-rolls, and manufactured cannabis products sold within California.

courtesy of Nabis

The Confusing Timeline for Implementing Child-Resistant Packaging

Beyond the CDPH’s fairly subjective requirement that Child-Resistant Packaging, “be difficult for children under 5 years of age to open,” cannabis industry resources provided by California State government leave a lot of room for error in terms of the latest regulations on Child-Resistant packaging. The California Department of Health’s packaging and labeling checklists do not contain detailed directions on how to incorporate the Child Resistant packaging (CRP) required for all cannabis products by 2020.

These regulations were released after a majority of California businesses revamped their packaging to meet requirements released in July of 2018, which did not mention the CDPH has given cannabis businesses all of 2019 to get their packaging up to the latest standards. “During 2019,” according to their website, “child resistant packaging requirements may be fulfilled using either individual product packaging or through exit packaging at retail.”

So… who can package cannabis products?

With the provision that retailers can provide child-resistant exit packaging until the end of 2019, there may be some confusion as to who exactly is responsible for the final packaging on cannabis products. According to the California Department of Health’s official packaging requirements, “Cannabis flower may be packaged by a cultivator, manufacturer, or distributor. Manufactured cannabis products (e.g. edibles, tinctures, shatter) must be packaged and labeled by the manufacturer prior to transfer to a distributor as finished products.”

What Exit Packaging at retail means in reality

For the remainder of 2019 a brand can do wholesale deliveries of products that are compliantly labeled but do not have child-resistant containers, putting the responsibility of providing compliant exit packaging in the hands of the retailer.

The added expense of packaging certainly makes a noncompliant brand less attractive to a retailer, which can ultimately affect a brand’s sales. Furthermore, exit packaging could cover up vital labeling information on the outside of a product’s original packaging. While this might be acceptable this year, by January 1st of 2020 the outermost packaging on all products must feature the required labeling information. For an in-depth look at labeling requirements, see Part III and Part IV of this series.

This post is part of a series on compliant packaging and labeling.

See other parts of our guide:

Compliant Cannabis Product Packaging & Labels Part I: Misleading Information for Manufacturers.

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