Cannabis Buds: The Elephant in the Room

Nobody in the European Union is admitting that they should be smoked/vaped

Slovene version

Photo by Jennifer Latuperisa-Andresen on Unsplash

The urbane and sophisticated readers of this blog will have no doubt already heard that there is a rich tradition of everyday products having completely different original uses. Coca Cola is perhaps the most well-known example. First marketed to combat anxiety, headaches and drug dependence, some experts now claim that this viscous brown bile should make you vomit when you drink it.

For emergencies of a different kind, Viagra was initially used to treat heart disease symptoms. Now the salvation of middle-aged men the world over, this wonder pill helps with other “matters of the heart”. The far more innocent Play-Doh was originally intended to be used as a wallpaper cleaner before being remarketed for toddlers to mush into their parents’ freshly cleaned carpets. Bubble wrap started out as wall paper, which didn’t work. Then it was used for greenhouse insulation. Again, that didn’t catch on. Eventually, it became used as the packaging material and stress buster we know today. It’s strange, isn’t it? So many everyday products came from rather odd and unintended early categorizations and uses.

A similar phenomenon can be observed in the nascent Central European cannabis industry. Depending on where you live in the world, the exact same buds are being marketed for widely varying uses. In Italy, for example, low THC cannabis buds are sold as a technical product, more specifically as pot pourri. Some sellers in the UK even attempt to sell CBD buds as souvenirs in an attempt to comply with the law, failing to understand that buds are specifically prohibited there. That means that companies selling cannabis buds in this way are not required to follow the health and safety requirements for a food product. More importantly, the law in these countries is forcing sellers to provide their products in this way, which is pretty appalling.

Be as responsible as possible

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In Slovenia, however, the CBD bud companies there are taking a more responsible approach. Although still not ideal, they sell it as a tea, again to fit in with local trends and comply with the law. In the absence of a tobacco product classification, right now the most responsible way to market CBD buds is as a food product. The conditions that need to be met for packaging and storage, along with the demands of HACCP criteria, ensure a higher quality product. Everyone knows that CBD buds are ingested, and so why would anyone attempt to suggest that it is a technical product and not for consumption in this way? At the very least, cannabis buds need to be subjected to the rigors of testing that a regulated food establishment provides.

It just looks wrong

But I have to confess — every time I’m in a Slovenian cafe and see a fellow customer gingerly dropping a beautiful sticky CBD bud into a cup of hot water, destroying it beyond repair, I also die a little inside. And when this is done repeatedly, I start to feel faint and have to bid a hasty exit from the cafe or bar I see this torture taking place. It’s simple. These buds are made to be ground up and sprinkled in a vape or joint, but the law in the European Union has not yet created a framework to cater for this demand. In the absence of any clear guidelines, you can see why various marketing approaches have been adopted.

Let’s get real

Yes, there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to cannabis in the European Union. This is not a tea. This is not a technical product you take home with you as a souvenir or something sweet smelling for your home. This is cannabis sativa but with very low levels of THC that comply with legal requirements. These buds are clearly to be smoked or vaped, as can be seen on Google searches all over the world. Nevertheless, if marketing cannabis in these ways is what it takes to get buds delivered safely and responsibly to the European public, then so be it. Right now, marketing cannabis as a technical product or as a tea (the more responsible option) is the only way currently available to take this market out of the hands of criminal enterprises and provide the millions of regular cannabis smokers in the European Union with access to fully tracked and responsibly sourced cannabis sativa.

Photo by Andrew Haimerl on Unsplash

So, we are getting any closer to having cannabis buds presented in the way they should be? Well, yes. Things are looking bright. Although this industry is still in its diapers, the European Union is now waking up to the reality that the drug laws make very little common sense. Preceded by Uruguay, the stalwarts of the EU’s Euro-Atlantic partners, the US, Canada and Switzerland, are showing where trends are heading.

In the interests of transparency, it’s important to be extra clear — cannabis buds should be smoked or vaped, so let’s be as honest as the law allows us to be. Marketing cannabis as a tea, souvenir or potpourri is done purely to make it easily accessible to the general public. It’s real use — for vaping or smoking — is becoming a real elephant in the room. And it’s time for that elephant to be identified and escorted from the premises.