I always say that the average marijuana consumer becomes more and more sophisticated every day. There will always be marijuana consumers that live in the ‘dark ages’ but with more and more states creating regulated marijuana industries, marijuana consumers are increasingly making their purchases at regulated outlets. Most marijuana consumers that I know that make their purchases at regulated outlets say that they do so because they like knowing what they are buying, something that isn’t always the case with the black market.
More and more consumers that I know are demanding all organic cannabis, and that’s a trend that I expect to continue moving forward. But what does that mean? What makes one harvest ‘organic’ and one not? That’s something that Colorado lawmakers debated started Friday. Per ABC:
Colorado starts work Friday on becoming the first state to regulate organic labels in its pot industry, with other legal weed states watching to see whether they too should step in to help consumers wondering what’s on their weed. Organic standards are regulated federally, and pot remains illegal at the federal level, meaning there’s nothing stopping commercial pot growers from calling their wares organic.
“Consumers have a right to know what they’re putting in their body,” said Colorado Rep. Jonathan Singer, a Democrat sponsoring the bill to create the state-sanctioned labels. The bill has its first hearing Friday in the state House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee. The measure doesn’t specify what growers would have to do to get the certification, it instead directs the state’s agricultural department to get a third party to draft the regulations. The bill also doesn’t say which pesticides would be off-limits for organic growers.
Consumer confusion over organic marijuana peaked in Colorado earlier this year, when Denver health authorities seized thousands of marijuana plants from growers suspected of using off-limits chemicals on their plants.
Organic food labeling is an evolving thing, and marijuana is much more complicated. I’m all for organic labeling, as long as it doesn’t involve too much bureaucracy. But regardless of a label, consumers should know where their marijuana comes from and what is in it. If Colorado can put reasonable organic marijuana labeling standards in place, it could become the framework that all other states in America mimic in the future.
