Stakeholders in the edible marijuana world – retailers, manufacturers, health officials and child advocates – will soon meet to hammer out final rules for potency labeling on cannabis candies and snacks.
One plan is off the table before the meeting begins. The task force-floated idea to label edibles with ski run signage – like green circles for Maureen Dowd and black diamonds for pie-eyed veterans – is no longer an option after lobbying by the Colorado ski industry.
Green circles, blue squares and black diamonds have directed skiers for half a century. Even nonskiers recognize the venerable ranking system. So it’s easy to understand how a Colorado task force in May could suggest such widely understood symbols when it came to ranking the potency of suddenly popular marijuana treats.
But Colorado Ski Country, the tradegroup representing the ski areas that host a majority of the nation’s skiers, doesn’t want to share its timeless markers. Especially since the industry has labored to separate itself from the state’s marijuana frenzy, perpetually reminding visitors that partaking of marijuana in public or on federal land remains illegal.
Ski Country took its concerns to the statehouse and convinced lawmakers to add a quick sentence to legislation authorizing state regulators to develop a labeling system for edible marijuana. House Bill 1366 was designed to protect consumers from stony crapulence with edible cannabis labels using “a standard symbol indicating that it contains marijuana.”
Ski Country lobbied for a quick addition: “The symbols promulgated by rule of the state licensing authority must not appropriate signs or symbols associated with another Colorado business or industry.”
Thus died the immobilizing, puddle-on-the-couch “Black Diamond Cheeba Chew.”
“We were concerned about having the levels of marijuana impairment be associated with symbols that are so closely aligned with those of the ski industry and have been for so many years. And legislators agreed with our concerns,” said Ski Country spokeswoman Jenn Rudolph.
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