Regulating Cannabis Edibles in the United States

Cannabis edibles are food products infused with marijuana. Marijuana is also called weed, herb or grass. A vast number of other slang terms are often used to refer to cannabis. People smoke marijuana in hand-rolled cigarettes while others use it in brew tea or mixed into foods and drinks (edibles) such as brownies, cookies, or candies and beverages. Edibles can be used for recreation or as medication. Cannabis contains chemicals and compounds chemically related to THC called cannabinoids

Cannabis edibles present a new way of consuming marijuana as opposed to smoking and vaping. Brownies are among the most common food products infused with marijuana. Cannabis is common in states that have legalized marijuana and where medical marijuana is used. Many patients prefer cannabis edibles because it’s an unconventional way to taking medicine as opposed to routine prescriptive drugs.

In the United States, FDA is mandated to regulate drugs and food substances through consideration of producer’s storage containers, testing of contents and analyzing the THC levels of ingredients for regulated products. FDA is also concerned with customer awareness and disposal mechanisms of regulated food and drug products. With access to marijuana flower or oil, you can make edibles with varying quantities of ingredients unlike the regulated food and medication. This means that you can make cannabis edibles with varying quantities of ingredients with no interference of FDA. There is another major challenge. By 2019, Fourteen out of fifty states and territories in the US had approved adult-use cannabis posing a great challenge to economic liberalization. Further, you can convert any recipe into a medicinal or recreational edible without answering to any authority. This can be unpropitious.

 

As of Jan. 22, 2018, the Vermont legislature passed adult-use legalization legislation and the governor signed the bill. The measure does not set up a regulatory system for sales or production. See the text of the measure below.

 

Challenges of Unregulated Edibles

There are many advantages of regulated economies. In the cannabis industry, you will not know when your delicacy is overdosed with cannabis since there is no official cannabis manual. People have overdone their edibles causing excessive intoxication that have resulted to severe psychotic symptoms. Marijuana edibles have been associated with nausea, dizziness, headache, and other unhealthy symptoms.  

Home-made cannabis can easily, but slowly lead to routine administration and addictive habits with adverse health effect across individuals. What is favorable to you may not be recommendable to your confidant. This opens the industry to relativity.

Unlike the case of regulated drugs, homemade edibles may not have content analysis, hence difficult to monitor recovery pattern when used medically. Edible dosage for retail may be inexact since they are not prepared in pharmaceutical setups a factor that highly compromising products reliability and variability.  Again, myriad techniques are used to extract cannabinoids from the cannabis plants a factor that can result to considerable variation in the amount and homogeneity of cannabinoids of final products. Edibles sold at medicinal and recreational dispensaries do not face the stringent quality control measures used to ensure consistency of medications or other regulated drugs.

The home setup environments where marijuana edibles are prepared and used predisposes children to drugs intakes. This is not allowed as children are supposed to leave in protected environments. Cases of accidental indigestion of food and drugs have been reported among minors. Again, not every person would be willing to consume cannabis edibles. For instance, faith of some clients may discourage them from cannabis injections. When cannabis products are stocked in shopping stores, the probability of being accidentally picked by a naïve customer is very high.   

With open market liberalization, online marketing is the order of doing business. This is a challenge for investors of edibles. Cannabis is illegal at the federal level and is regulated on a state-by-state basis. For instance, in 2016, four states (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) legalized recreational sales and use of cannabis edibles. This means that sale of cannabis cannot be open for trade across states as each state apply its rules differently.

Restaurants are known to be non-discriminatory. However, with sell of cannabis-infused meals, there will be need to specify the expected clienteles for different facilities. This will be against the principal of equity among humanity. You will find yourself against the law to walk in a restaurant with children if you are a user of marijuana edibles.

In conclusion, though edibles have become popular method of cannabinoid administration in the legalized cannabis market, not all states can participate. There are many limitations and challenges that the industry is facing as of today. There is need for standard regulations and adequate quality control measures against cannabis overdoses and accidental pediatric exposures. It is highly recommended that labeling of cannabis products should be more educative for consumers’ safety.

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