This blog has made it a whole 2 months since the last post about Minnesota’s Adult-Use Cannabis Law, and now it is time to get back into it!
On July 31st, Office of Cannabis Management [OCM] put out its first draft of the proposed rules related to adult-use cannabis. In its announcement, OCM made clear that this was merely a first draft, and that this was not part of the formal comment period. In other words, this is the preview to the preview: the opportunity for OCM to get the rule out to the general public, adjust it, and put out an official draft rule with an official comment period later this year. This first draft and the comment form are available at this link until August 30th.
This attorney could not refuse the opportunity to take a look at that first draft, and I will break down my thoughts below (keeping in mind that these are comments on an unofficial first draft, not future official drafts). With attorney eyes, the big pieces that stick out are the elaboration of the operational, reporting, and labeling requirements – though licensing, social equity, appeals procedure, and medical cannabis were addressed as well.
On the operations front, OCM seems to set the expectation in its first draft that the operations should be crisp and well-documented for essentially all varieties of license holders. These requirements include documented employee safety and facility security procedures. What surprised me was the extent of some of these procedures. For example, the first draft suggests that all cannabis businesses would be required to have a plethora of security features, including an alarm system with automatic response features and video cameras.
On the labeling front, OCM has proposed standards to labeling and symbols to include on the labels of cannabis products. The labeling requirements fit into a few essential buckets: (i) warning about the nature of the product; (ii) a description of the product specifications and its sources; and (iii) labeling prohibitions (such as nothing false or deceptive, infringing on trademark, appealing to consumers under the age of 21).
Finally, on the reporting front, OCM suggests a statewide tracking system for the purpose of keeping track of cannabis products as they move through production and supply chains, as well as making the various records (required under the draft rule) available for OCM’s review and inspection.
The first draft to me reads as a good start, including some opportunities to improve and clarify. Credit is certainly due to OCM for trying to meaningful engage the public at this steps and earlier steps in the process. It supports the notion that the rules are headed in a direction that considers a wide variety of stakeholders and perspectives.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for subsequent posts as the rulemaking process continues!