Choosing the right child-resistant packaging for your Marijuana Business: 7 quick tips to help you
When it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, the State and federal governments have listed out several packaging regulations and guidelines to ensure consumer safety. One of the most vulnerable groups they seek to protect is children. This is because many products intended for adult use (such as cleaning agents, pesticides, medications) can prove to be extremely harmful and, in some cases, deadly if used by children.
Child Resistant Packaging in the Cannabis Business
Like other industries, the cannabis industry must adhere to regulatory guidelines too. And with the increasing legalization and acceptance of recreational as well as medical marijuana, it has become all the more crucial for cannabis business owners to ensure they are only using child-resistant packaging.
If you deal in cannabis products, especially cannabis edibles, you must check whether your packaging is truly child-resistant. This is because cannabis-infused food, candies, or beverages could potentially seem appealing to children. As you know, many cannabis products, especially edibles, mimic the look of candies and can be ingested by children mistakenly. If you are confused about how to find the perfect cannabis packaging for your business, read the below tips.
Tips for choosing the right child-resistant packaging for your marijuana business
Child resistance is an uncompromisable feature that your marijuana packaging must have. This feature helps your customers keep their cannabis products away from the reach of their children or pets. Even cannabis-infused food and beverages brands need to consider the safety aspect of marijuana packaging. Cannabis business owners must also consider the cost, shelf life, environmental impact, labeling ability, and accessibility by seniors, among other factors, to find the perfect packaging.
Here are seven tips to help you find childproof packaging suitable for your cannabis business.
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Choose an ideal format for your cannabis products
To find childproof packaging, you must first shortlist a packaging format for your cannabis product. Whether you are producing and packaging prerolled joints, loose flower, or fancy edibles, you need to select the best packaging for each type of product.
There are many ‘child-resistant’ rigid paper boxes available in the market, but are they good enough? Are they optimal for maintaining the freshness of your cannabis products? Choosing such boxes might lower your overall cost but might not preserve your cannabis edibles for long. You will need to flow wrap your edibles before packaging them in these paper boxes.
Relying on such temporary solutions can put your brand image and reputation at risk. It can also cause a health hazard to your customers. Choosing a specific format that suits your cannabis products the best is vital to avoid this risk. There are several options to choose from. For example, you can choose multilayered film pouches.
Multilayered film pouches are air-tight and moisture resistant. They lock in the strong odor of your cannabis products and prevent them from escaping the pouch. The surface area on these pouches is enough to place your brand logo, design, and other necessary labels. Besides being cost-effective, film pouches occupy lesser storage space than rigid boxes. You can also choose from various other childproof packaging designs like glass jars, mylar bags, pop tops, blister packs, glass blunt tubes, among others. The only challenge is to identify the right mylar bags or identify the right pop tops for your line of cannabis products
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Choose marijuana packaging with child resistant closures
Don’t be misled with the label ‘Child Resistant’ and rush to buy the packaging. Check whether the packaging has enough child-resistant closures. Most child-resistant packages have a two-part opening sequence which prevents children from opening them up easily. If your package is just a tear apart kind, children are more likely to access it easily.
But when the packaging is like a puzzle, it confuses children and keeps them away from it entirely. For example, push and turn, push and pop or push and slide closures work well in this regard. Even child resistant lids on containers are prevalent. For example, one can open such containers by applying downward pressure and twisting the lid anti-clockwise at the same time.
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Choose packaging that is accessible to seniors
Many packaging companies first test their packages for senior accessibility before testing them for child resistance. Therefore, when choosing child-resistant packaging, be sure that the packaging is not so complex that seniors cannot access it.
Your packaging design needs to be such that it does not get around with children. Still, seniors should be able to access it, even those who have diminished hand-eye coordination, strength, or vision impairment. If seniors cannot open your packaging or resecure it easily, its design must be reconsidered.
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Choose environmentally responsible marijuana packaging
The cannabis industry is pushing towards sustainable marijuana packaging solutions. This calls for innovative designs and new materials that can be used to create efficient, child-resistant marijuana packaging.
You can stay ahead of your competitors by choosing sustainable marijuana packaging for your cannabis products. Make sure you check the composition of the cannabis packaging you’re buying in bulk. Today, diverse packaging options are available. Packaging made from hemp materials, bioplastics, wheat straw, and traditional plastic resin in place of single-use plastic is widely used.
The idea is to use packaging made of materials that degrade faster, causing less or no environmental harm. Another way to become more sustainable is by choosing a packaging provider with a local supply chain or using less material, thus having a lower carbon footprint.
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Take into consideration the opacity of the packaging
Childproof packaging designs are available in both clear and opaque types. Some states require cannabis products to be packaged in opaque packaging to make it impossible for an observer to identify its contents or the quantity of contents. With opaque containers, your customers can keep their purchases discreet while leaving the dispensary or when they reach their home.
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Ensure you are using ‘Certified’ Child-Resistant Packages
Many states require that cannabis packaging undergo testing in an independent lab that passes the CR testing guidelines. According to federal CR testing guidelines, packages are given to 5-year-old children. During this trial, children attempt to open the packages for a set amount of time.
The success or failure of the packaging depends on whether the children can access it within 10 minutes or sometimes at longer intervals. The majority of the children must find it difficult to open the package in the given time for the testing to succeed. When you use ‘certified’ child resistant packaging, you can be sure that it has been tested with children and poses no threat to your customers.
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Ensure there is enough labeling space on the child-resistant package
When you’re into the cannabis business, your packaging should not merely focus on your brand logo and name but also on proper labels as stated by the State guidelines. Proper labeling is crucial for cannabis products because consumers should be well aware of all the health-related implications when they decide to purchase them.
State regulations require all cannabis products to mention choking hazards, warning labels, and other risks related to the product. Information like the percentage of THC content, dosage, strain type must also be mentioned on the label. It would be wise to choose child-resistant packaging with enough space to display your labels as per the regulations.
When you choose child-resistant packaging in line with all the above pointers, you will make a sound purchase decision. But when you buy the child-resistant packaging from Loud Lock, you will make the best purchase decision.
At Loud Lock Packaging, all our packaging solutions are child-resistant and tested to ensure maximum safety for your dispensary or shop and customers. Whether it is mylar bags, pop tops, or glass jars, we have all kinds of suitable marijuana packaging that meets the state regulatory guidelines. Simply visit us here and select the perfect child-resistant cannabis packaging for your brand with a single click!
- Matthew Centeno