The Brownie Ban:Colorado’s “edible complex” gets even more complex

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The
edibles industry has faced a wave of scrutiny and forced changes over the past
few months. It doesn’t look like things are going to get any easier for the
manufacturers either. Now, the Colorado Department of Health is considering an
entirely new ban for edibles, one that could cripple the edible industry.

During a state advisory workgroup in October,
health officials debated banning several forms of edibles, including candies,
cookies, brownies and others sweets. The aim of the group meeting was to
discuss ways to keep people, especially children, from accidentally ingesting cannabis-infused
products. This has become a growing problem this year and the group met to
discuss several proposals on how to address the issue. The most debated
proposal was the ban for which the health department argued that the
non-infused versions of the foods in question are marketed toward kids;
therefore, the infused versions of these products violate the state law of not
marketing cannabis to kids.
This was the most extreme proposal set forth at
the meeting, but there were others. Many of the proposals involved clearer
forms of labeling to identify infused products. Another proposal suggested
making all edibles into a unique shape or dying them a special color. Each of
these suggestions were met with their own backlash, including labels being easy
to remove and that dye would force companies to use ingredients they may not
want to. Overall, the meeting stirred a lot of heated debate without producing
any real solutions.

The health department has since put out a press
release stating that they had not considered the constitutionality of their
proposal, nor had they ran it by the Governor’s office; it was put forth in an
attempt to generate discussion. It managed to generate a lively discussion,
most of it finding the proposal outrageous and even unlawful. While none of the
proposals made much headway at the meeting, the group is meeting again in
mid-November to discuss proposals again. Any final suggestions that the group
considers will be presented to the state legislature next year. The Department
of Revenue will have the final say and they must make a decision on the topic
by 2016.