The Canadian Medical Association is calling for prescription level packaging standards for cannabis– both recreational and medical- and that the packaging be designed by health professionals like themselves and other government officials.
As the CMA’s news release further explained, “the CMA is advocating for regulations that protect Canadians from misleading claims on health products containing cannabis”.
Testing cannabis’ health effects
CMA president Dr. Marcoux said, “We believe rigorous scientific evidence is needed to support claims of health benefits, and to identify potential risks and adverse reactions.”
Many cannabis strains have “happy”, “euphoric”, and “uplifting” effects, as evidenced by how common these traits show up on cannabis information sites like Leafly, and the more research we do, the better we can learn about the different strains and their unique characteristics.
Many doctors and healthcare professionals are still very wary of cannabis as medicine or otherwise, and often call for more research. When it comes to cannabis, we should indulge them and let the science speak for itself, and maybe what we learn from these rigorous tests could help us better optimize a strain’s positive traits through seed breeding.
What effect could this have on cannabis packaging?
Many provinces have already chosen LDB-controlled distribution, and if cannabis gets CMA-controlled packaging, will that leave any room for the brands and reputations that Canada’s craft growers have been building for decades?
We don’t want the thriving cannabis industry to devolve into one where everybody is selling the same weed in the same packaging, do we?
It seems that’s the way the CMA and many provincial governments are leaning towards.
Featured image courtesy of Huffington Post
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