Federal, state and local officials have voted to add a pair of new marijuana items to a federal handbook that are meant to provide model standards for cannabis definitions,\u00a0 packaging and labeling requirements and best storage practices to control for moisture loss in marijuana flower.<\/p>\n
At a National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM) conference on Wednesday, members of the bicameral conference\u2019s House of Representatives and House of Delegates passed the marijuana proposals that were offered by the Laws and Regulations (L&R) Committee. The package needed 27 votes to pass and it received 33.<\/p>\n
NCWM previously approved a number of relevant cannabis-related changes to federal guidance<\/a> from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last year as part of their annual meeting. But some items were held back for additional consideration, including those that were taken up during this week\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n Michael Bronstein, president of the American Trade Association of Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH), said in a statement on Wednesday that the vote \u201cis the most historic for cannabis standards and a culmination of ATACH\u2019s pioneering calls for industry wide standards in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis means state and federal regulators will use material that ATACH members helped develop through the ASTM International standards process, as universal cannabis standards that will be referenced in the NIST handbook,\u201d he said. \u201cIt all but guarantees that standards developed through this pipeline, which ATACH helped build, will be referenced by state regulators and eventually by the federal government. Standards are fundamental to legitimate cannabis commerce, uniformity in regulations across jurisdictions, and to maintain public health and safety of consumers; today is monumental.\u201d<\/p>\n One adopted measure would establish a definition for cannabis that reads:<\/p>\n \u201cCannabis<\/em> is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae, of which Cannabis sativa, indica, ruderalis<\/em> are species., and any hybridization thereof. This definition includes products that contain 0.3 percent or less of Total Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (also known as Hemp) and products that contain more than 0.3 percent of Total Delta-9 THC (also known as cannabis, marijuana or marihuana).\u201d<\/p>\n It further proposes basic labeling requirements for cannabis products. Such items must capitalize and italicize the word \u201cCannabis<\/em>\u201d under the guideline, as well as denote that the product either \u201cContains 0.3% or less Total Delta-9 THC\u201d or \u201cContains more than 0.3% Total Delta- 9 THC.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, it says that the back or side panel on cannabis packaging must include \u201ca declaration of the labeled cannabinoid per serving or application,\u201d with a specification that \u201cthe cannabinoid quantity declaration shall be in milligrams.\u201d The policy would go into effect starting January 1, 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason behind all of it is just to allow consumers and patients to understand what it is that they\u2019re buying\u2014clearly stated, what\u2019s in it and how much,\u201d Charlie Rutherford, co-chair of the NCWM Cannabis Task Group<\/a>, told Marijuana Moment. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n The other adopted change to the NIST handbook would create water activity rules for the sale of bulk cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen unprocessed Cannabis, is kept, offered, or exposed for sale, sold, bartered, or exchanged, or ownership transfers, the water activity shall be 0.60 (\u00b1 0.05),\u201d it says<\/a>.<\/p>\n For bulk sales of cannabis in liquid form, \u201cthe reference temperature for measurement shall be 20 \u00b0C (68 \u00b0F).\u201d it says. \u201cProducts shall be delivered at a temperature within \u00b1 2 \u00b0C (5 \u00b0F). Artificially heating liquids to temperatures higher than the specified limits is prohibited.\u201d The same 0.60 (\u00b1 0.05) water activity standard would apply for liquid cannabis, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thrilled that NCWM had the vision five years ago to explore harmonizing cannabis methods of sale and packaging and labeling regulations, which has resulted in the first nationally recognized regulations for ensuring fairness in every transaction,\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cI appreciate NIST\u2019s willingness to publish these NCWM standards in their handbooks.\u201d<\/p>\n When earlier versions of the two proposals came up during last year\u2019s NCWM annual meeting, they were narrowly defeated, coming short by just two votes. This round, Rutherford said, the cannabis task force made sure that they were \u201cin touch with every single state\u201d and spent time \u201chelping them understand what it means [and] what it doesn\u2019t mean.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the reason for the success this year is \u201cjust by virtue of more states having medical programs or recreational programs\u2014but I think it might also be due to a little bit more comfort on the topic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in states that don\u2019t have medical or adult-use, some of them are recognizing that they do have a hemp program, and then it applies there,\u201d Rutherford said. \u201cBut then they also recognize that they want these to pass so that their friends and other states have the ability to use them as model standards.\u201d<\/p>\n Another proposed cannabis change to the NIST handbook that came out of the Specifications and Tolerances (S&T) Committee was not assigned voting status for this week\u2019s event at the conference\u2019s interim meeting in January. The developing item would establish \u201cuniform standards for scale suitability\u201d for cannabis that could be used to \u201cstrengthen each jurisdiction\u2019s ability to effectively regulate the industry in a fair and equitable manner.\u201d<\/p>\n The conference<\/a> adopted the two other cannabis measures despite early pushback from NIST\u2019s Office of Weights and Measures (OWM), which said in an analysis<\/a> that while it \u201crecognizes the importance of this work and the progress the [task force] has made thus far,\u201d it still believes \u201cthere are some significant issues that need to be addressed before this block of items is ready for adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n NIST\u2019s OWM raised concerns about the proposed effective date, questioned the need for a definition of cannabis and suggested an expansion of the scope of the water activity requirements measure, for example.<\/p>\n NIST<\/a>, which does not play a voting role in whether the conference items are adopted, has separately investigated marijuana issues and worked to develop testing standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n Relatedly, the federal institute announced in 2020 that it was launching a cannabis testing program<\/a>\u00a0to help ensure that the products people purchase from retailers and dispensaries are accurately labeled.<\/p>\n In 2021, the agency also invited labs to\u00a0participate in a large-scale study<\/a>\u00a0to assess their ability to accurately analyze marijuana and hemp samples for their cannabinoid profile and possible contaminants.<\/p>\n Feds Recommend Buying A Map To Avoid Bringing Marijuana Into National Forests In Minnesota Following Legalization<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Federal Standards Handbook Is Getting New Sections On Cannabis Packaging, Labeling And Storage<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Federal, state and local officials have voted to add a pair of new marijuana items to a federal handbook that are meant to provide model standards for cannabis definitions,\u00a0 packaging and labeling requirements and best storage practices to control for moisture loss in marijuana flower. At a National Conference onContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67318,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67317\/revisions\/67318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Federal Standards Handbook Is Getting New Sections On Cannabis Packaging, Labeling And Storage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"