By Steve Owens

Have you ever seen children’s aspirin in a “pop-top” bottle or container? No. If the Federal government decided to re-schedule marijuana to Schedule II or lower after the election, 30% or more of the marijuana products on the market would be non-compliant for child-resistant (C-R) and over-the-counter (OTC) medication requirements.

Why is medical and retail marijuana exempt from basic child safety measures required by federal law for medicated products? As witnessed on many occasions in Colorado and other states, federal agencies are inspecting and levying fines and penalties to legal state-licensed marijuana operations for various financial, regulatory or safety violations. To date, both state and federal regulators have shown to be ill-equipped in their abilities to enforce labeling, packaging and product safety requirements for their jurisdictions.

According to an article by the Executive Director of Advocacy at Children’s Hospital Colorado concerning recreational use and child safety, there has been a sharp uptick in the number of accidental ingestion cases year-over-year since the new law went into effect in 2014. Nearly half of the children who ingested medicated marijuana products in emergency room events “required care in the intensive care unit and some needed intubation.” Hospitals are not yet tracking data related to pediatric marijuana exposures, nor is there any way of knowing the number of unreported cases that occur in each state. It’s only a matter of time until a serious incident occurs that is related to faulty or non-C-R and OTC compliant marijuana product sold.

All packaging options for marijuana should require C-R packaging and follow the same requirements as acetaminophen, aspirin or other over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, as outlined by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or www.cpsc.gov). A dual-mechanism container opening, on such C-R products as children’s aspirin, require a push down and turn movement in sequence vs a one-mechanism opening such as a pop-top bottle or container. If a child steps on a dual-mechanism container or drops it, there can be a significantly lower chance or probability that it will “pop” open as a pop-top bottle would.

Child Safety and Marijuana Packaging

From a child safety perspective, all pop-top bottles and containers should be prohibited from medical and recreational marijuana use. Wise businesses and multi-licensed marijuana operations should ensure that product packaging and safety goes above and beyond standard compliance in order to protect the safety of children.

Can a marijuana business afford to have it’s labeled and branded product found in a school yard or federal land given a criminal or civil offense? Avoidance is key when it comes to items that can increase the liability of the business. Moreover, banks, insurance companies and landlords should ensure that all marijuana products manufactured, produced or sold from their clients or tenants are compliant as per federal child safety standards.

As the cannabis industry strives to emerge from rapid growth and a loosely-regulated environment, one major aspect of industry maturation is continuing to establish legitimacy. To better ensure child safety and reduce product liability, owners and operators should prohibit the use of any pop-top bottles or containers for medical or recreational sales. To assist in the industry evolution into legitimacy, the packaging companies should stop producing federally non-compliant containers and move to OTC, dual-mechanism bottles and containers.

A Move to Legitimacy

To continue to strive toward industry legitimacy, we must evolve to federal compliance for consumer and child safety. Flooding the marketing with cheap, plastic pop-top bottles and containers is not helping the industry to legitimize. In order to be taken seriously, the marijuana industry should seek to ban all forms of packaging that does not meet or exceed federal requirements as per Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of December 2013. Protecting children must be a leading cause for the industry to emerge from the illegitimate shadows of the past.

Source:  Heidi Baskfield, J.D., “Recreational Marijuana Legalization and the Effects on Child Health and Safety” Children’s Hospital Colorado, April 2015