With recreational marijuana now legal in California, and more states following every year, more and more cannabis products are being produced. Of course, that means that manufacturers have to be judicious about packaging. Nobody wants these products to accidentally fall into the hands of children. A child who inadvertently eats an entire bag of THC gummies, for example, could experience multiple negative side effects. That’s why it’s important for manufacturers to look into packaging that will resist and deter children from opening it. All cannabis goods sold in California will need to be packaged in child-resistant cartons or bags by January 1, 2020. The packaging must also be tamper-evident, with an unbroken seal. Colorado’s Medical Marijuana code requires that the packaging be child resistant but not difficult for disabled and/or elderly people to open. This is a challenging combination of requirements when considering anything other than pill bottles. With edibles, topicals, and concentrates now on the market, new packaging solutions must be created. They must also comply with the rigorous packaging decoration requirements, featuring the red THC symbol, the yellow health warning, the THC/CBD content, weight, packaging date, and number of units or doses. The packages must be opaque, and if retailing in Canada, cannot be designed in such a way as to be appealing to young people. That means no endorsements, no testimonials, no depictions of people, characters, or animals. It may not associate with a ‘way of life including glamor, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk, or daring’.
Packaging design companies have developed and tested child-resistant cartons. They are compatible with high quality printing and can receive graphics of many varieties. Do you want plenty of space for your brand to stand out while including all legally mandated product information? Do you want a carton that is compatible with standard packaging equipment? You can have both. There’s no rule that says government compliance and beautiful design have to be mutually exclusive. Your packaging can showcase your brand beautifully and uniquely that will suit your legal obligations as well as the image you are establishing with your consumers. Don’t settle for low-quality generic overseas packaging solutions. Let Southern California Graphics help you design and print child proof cannabis packaging that will jump off the shelf– but not into kids’ hands.
Child Resistant Packaging
Of course, child resistant packaging has been around for half a century, thanks to the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970. It was drafted in response to the significant issue of children ingesting hazardous household products: cleaning products, prescription drugs, and more. Poisonings from household products were the leading cause of injuries to under-fives, according to the US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC). Pill bottles with push and twist lids has protected many children from accidental overdoses for decades. The test involves children between 42 and 51 months old, who have five and then ten minutes to open a sample package. It is then tested by 100 ‘seniors’ (people between 50 and 70 years old). The essential design has not changed in that time. It is only now, with the legalization of recreational marijuana, that packaging makers are actively looking for new ways to design child-resistant packaging.
An issue with childproof packaging is that it should be suitable for storing the product in the home. In Colorado in 2013, marijuana purchases had to leave dispensaries in exit bags that were certified child resistant. The issue was that the products were then removed from the exit bags when the consumers arrived home. It was estimated that 14,000 Colorado homes with children under 14 years old had marijuana in unsafe storage. After that report, Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Department (MED) got to work drafting new regulations for the cannabis industry to follow. Any containers holding medical and retail marijuana, concentrate, and infused-products were required to be child resistant.
Special Packaging that’s Custom Printed
The next generation of packaging includes tamper-resistant dropper bottles, slide boxes, and tins. Even the old standard pill vials have received an update. Unfortunately, the regulatory information (required by the MED) on the container takes up a huge amount of space on a typical pill vial, leaving precious little real estate for cannabis brands to actually brand their goods. The packaging industry struggled with how to package products and brand them at the same time. Manufacturers decided that the key was to brand the bottle top. After all, with fifty years of child-proof pill bottle packaging, everyone who needs to knows how to open a bottle.
The slide boxes have highly intelligent designs which are child safe, preventing the contents from being removed thanks to a system which prevents the tray from being slid out unless it the carton is gripped in specific places. It can be sized for concentrates and cartridges, vape pens, edibles, or candy bars. Cartons can be customised with metallic inks, UV inks and coatings, embossing, debossing, foil stamping, or so on. Southern California Graphics also offers QR code imprints, perforating, spot UV, and environmentally friendly printing options.
Manufacturing Child Safe Cannabis Packaging
The wide variety of cannabis products on the market necessitates many different varieties of child safe packaging. Some of the innovations being developed out there today are detailed below. These packaging solutions are all compliant with the American Society for Testing and Materials’ (ASTM) child-resistant standard.
Flower packaging options have been problematic in the past. Producers have found their products genericized by dispensaries repackaging their products in their own branded jars and bags. These newer regulations most importantly keep children from obtaining marijuana products. However, they also represent an opportunity to seize the chance to brand your own product and assert ownership. Pre-roll products cannot be packaged in simple boxes. There are pop-top tubes in various sizes that are certified and child-resistant.
There are various designs of bag, both single and multiple use. All are child-resistant. The durable construction and heat sealable closure of the single-use bags ensures that contaminants and moisture cannot get in or out. The bags are made of layers of opaque material, food-safe and smell-proof. The multi-use bags feature a two-handed locking mechanism with a secure zipper. They ship and store flat, but feature a fold-out gusset so they can stand by themselves on display.
Edibles are the most pressing concern when it comes to child safe packaging. Given that edibles often come in candy form or chocolate, children can be very interested in accessing them, not understanding why they shouldn’t. Another innovation in the field of child safe cannabis packaging is the CRATIV Case. It is a plastic box that must simultaneously be pressed on the sides and front to be opened. The CRATIV is designed to be safe storage for edibles, and to be not only recyclable but reusable. Difficult for children to open due to their smaller hands, it is of a suitable size to be used for lighters, jewelry, or rolling papers. It can even be used as a credit card holder.
Southern California Graphics is equipped to print to a variety of packaging substrates. If you are interested in partnering with us in order to produce child-proof cannabis packaging for your products, we would love to hear from you. Call us today at 310-596-4244.
