Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research in Brock’s Goodman School of Business, wrote a piece recently published in the Ottawa Citizen about restrictions on the packaging for legal marijuana.

Armstrong writes:

Parliament has finally passed its recreational cannabis bill, allowing legal sales to begin on Oct 17. But the government still needs to finalize the detailed regulations supporting that law. When doing so, it should relax the proposed rules on cannabis packaging. Otherwise, it will be handicapping legal producers in their upcoming competition against illegal ones.

The cannabis rules currently proposed would require very plain packages and labels. Packages must be opaque and have one colour. Fluorescent colours, glossy coatings, and textured surfaces are banned.

Labelling is likewise restricted. Brand names must be printed no larger than the health information. Corporate logos must be smaller than the cannabis warning symbols.

These restrictions presumably are to discourage cannabis consumption. That¹s a worthy intent. But their impact will be counterproductive for the government’s main policy goal.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau often argues that legalization is necessary to counter black-market cannabis sales. He wants to cut the revenues going to criminals. 

That will require newly legalized cannabis producers to out-compete established illicit grow-ops. Legal products will need every advantage to win that competition. Instead, current packaging rules handicap them.

Firstly, they make it difficult to build high quality reputations. This is one area where legal producers could develop an edge. Their industrial-scale production includes quality control and chemical testing. That should help avoid defects such as pesticide contamination.

Continue reading the full article here.