NEXT STOP, HEMP PLASTIC

With the advent of the recent Colorado regulations which mandate child-resistant containers for all cannabis sales from dispensaries, get ready to see some new containers at your dispensary. If you look online for “containers for marijuana” you do get quite a bit of information. In visiting a local dispensary, you will now see a wide variety of shapes and sizes of containers. Some are quite hard to open, even for adults. The black bag with the zipper is a plastic pouch with a complicated, and what looks to be an expensive, zipper. Good luck opening it. This is a large carryall for the products you purchase at the dispensary.

Given that eight states have now legalized medical cannabis and 29 states now have legalized recreational (also known as retail) cannabis, we will be seeing more and more regulations for the packaging of cannabis. We are talking about thousands and millions of oil based plastic containers possibly filling up our landfills.

“Given that eight states have now legalized medical cannabis and 29 states now have legalized recreational (also known as retail) cannabis, we will be seeing more and more regulations for the packaging of cannabis. We are talking about thousands and millions of oil based plastic containers possibly filling up our landfills.”

So the oil-based plastic used to make these child-resistant containers can also be traded in for containers made from hemp-plastic. Plastic hemp is a product. Hemp is a cannabis sativa plant and can be grown to maximize the fibers in the stalk of the plant. Hemp has a low as 0.5 percent of the psychotropic chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is too low to have psychoactive affects. Hemp interestingly enough produces the cannabinoid CBD. CBD is non-psychoactive and has gained notoriety by being used to successfully treat children suffering from certain kinds of epilepsy and other seizure disorders.

There are many industrial uses for this durable natural material hemp, which include being used to make rope, fabrics, building materials, ballistic materials, and many other items, including plastic hemp. Basically any product that consumes petroleum can be produced from hemp. So, the petroleum based plastic used to make these multiple colorful containers, can be replaced with hemp plastic. Why is this important? Because we would want the thousands and millions of cannabis containers that are being used across our country, and will be used over the next many years, to break down and deteriorate in the landfills and not just sit there.

So, with the growing cannabis industry in our country, now is the time to think of the future and realize that plastic containers made from hemp would both be compatible with and supportive of the cannabis industry in our country. Since these containers could be used over and over by the customers and patients purchasing their many treasures at the dispensary and since these plastic hemp containers could also be saving our planet by saving the landfills, ask your dispensary if they will start using hemp.