Cannabis has received a ton of labels during its time. On Friday, lawmakers in Colorado will decide whether the state should give marijuana another label: organic. On Friday, Colorado begins working to be the first state to regulate organic labels in the marijuana market as other legalized states observe to decide whether they should help consumers who want to know what is in their product. Organic standards are managed on the federal level, and cannabis is still illegal federally which means that there is nothing stopping recreational marijuana cultivators from calling their strands organic.
“Consumers have a right to know what they’re putting in their body,” Colorado Rep. Jonathan Singer, a Democrat sponsoring the bill to create the organic labels, said.
The bill will have its first hearing on Friday in the state House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee. The measure does not state what cultivators would need to do to be certified but does tell the state’s farming department to get another party to come up with the regulations. In addition, the measure does not say what pesticides would be allowed to organic farmers.
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.Most of the plants were ultimately released, but some were sold with names that suggested the products were natural or organic.
“That misleads people,” Larisa Bolivar, head of the Cannabis Consumers Coalition, said. “We don’t want to wait for someone to get sick. You need to know that when something says organic, it’s organic.”
Colorado is probably the first state to become more strict on advertising cannabis products as organic, Chris Lindsey, legislative analyst for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, said.
“This is not exactly a movement, but it’s not too much of a stretch to say we’re headed that way,” he finished.
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