[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]f you’re walking into a shop this 4/20, you definitely want to pick up that jar of Girl Scout Cookies — take a deep breath, peruse the leaves — while you still can. In the age of legalized weed in California, by this summer, providers will no longer be allowed to open a jar of weed before selling flower to you.
That’s right. Get ready to say goodbye to the practice of looking closely at the trichomes (those little crystals) and contours of your weed. The little-known forthcoming change is one of the many evolutions cannabis is taking this year after full recreational legalization took effect. It hasn’t been an easy transition.
And starting July 1, all cultivators are going to have to be prepacking their cannabis, and you will be picking up glass jars and sealed baggies directly from dispensaries, as is currently practiced in Washington state.
This move to package up promises to change cannabis culture fairly significantly. Long-time consumers are used to being able to interact in a five-sense way with weed, checking out choice buds; in other words, it was a farmer’s market before those were big.
While big venture capitalist-funded chains like MedMen (in LA, West Hollywood, and San Diego) are already having customers select from a touchpad and smell a sample bud through a plastic box, other shops are still bracing for the changes to come. At Silverlake’s CCA, budtenders are warning customers the change is coming, and to inspect and smell while they can.
As Mikey, an underground indoor cultivator in Orange County also explained, the move will likely bring costs up for cultivators. The rule change has the potential to edge out small producers, including those who used to travel shop-to-shop with bags full of weed, who are already complaining of heightened compliance costs and complex licensing processes.
Cultivators, vape producers, and edible manufactures have been required by the state to test products at a lab and tell consumers and retailers what cannabanoids are in the products since January 1, and by the end of the year, they will have to provide terpene info as well.
[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]he state has also required testing and info for things that should not be in your weed. Vape oils sometimes include thinning agents or other products to make it easier to process, some of which have questionable effects. Flower, of course, can be grown with pesticides – that you then burn right into your lungs. And there is plenty of controversy (some of it based on mass panic a few years back) about the butane used to make resin, honey oil, wax or shatter for those dabs. While testing is now required for molds and bacteria, over the next few months, testing requirements are being ramped up to include all of the above, as well as heavy metals and other toxins.
With all this testing and labeling, this 4/20 may be one of the last times you will get to open up that jar at a dispensary, take a deep breath, and look closely at the texture and inhale the odor of your weed.
Edible and beverage manufacturers have also had to conform to significant packaging changes, which limit them to 10mg doses (unless you buy them with a medical rec). That being said, beverages don’t seem to have the same restrictions, so that new L.A.-produced Agua de Flor Horchata drink still comes in 110 mg bottles.
Whatever you land on today, in the future, it will all have to leave the shop with you in childproof bags that all stores will be required to carry (also increasingly branded by shop), with tricky zippers that you definitely will wish you could open before you smoke.
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