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WINTER LLP Update: Committee Blog: Protecting Stash-Assets

Committee Blog: Protecting Stash-Assets


By NCIA’s Infused Products Committee
Contributors include Radojka Barycki, Noval Compliance; Karin Clarke, KC Business Solutions; Lee Hilpert, Organnx; Danielle Maybach, Eva Gardens; Trevor Morones, Control Point; and Todd Winter, Winter LLP

You have spent months fighting sleep deprivation to build a strong pitch deck as the next most desired infused cannabis company. Educating staff, family, and friends, through role-plays and recent published journal entries. Blog after blog, inspirational book after book, and you start to believe that the deck is complete. Dress to impress then review the multi-colored sticky notes that list the risks of your operation. Some are likely, others are less, but what about the ones that are high? Is ALL of your due-diligence completed to pitch to the venture capital groups in the cannabis world?

The Issue

While legalization has quickly brought cannabis and cannabis-related products into international markets, relevant food safety regulations need to be implemented and adopted to protect patients and consumers. The infused product manufacturing sector, in particular, requires more uniform safety requirements to guide operating professionals, many of whom lack knowledge, resources, and incentive to standardize safety.

As target consumers range from large groups of adult consumers to medical users, safety is a paramount concern for all. This is especially true for medical users, as they are predominately high-risk consumers regardless of their specific medical condition.

The cannabis industry, especially the infused edible products sector, has a prime opportunity to incorporate and implement existing food safety regulations into their manufacturing processes. This will demonstrate alliance with the general food manufacturing industry and help to ensure that cannabis-infused product manufacturers are regulated no more stringently than any other food manufacturer.

The Risk

In addition to the already controversial nature of our industry, safety issues will undoubtedly garner public and press attention when as few one people become ill as a result of an unsafe product. Contamination inevitably comes from a variety sources, such as chemical, physical, or biological hazards in the growing and extraction process (and lack of testing), employee contamination (failure to use gloves, wash hands, dirty garments and tools, etc.), failure to adhere to basic food safety processing standards and practices (clean food contact surfaces, improper chemical concentrations, introducing biological contaminants).

Without clear and industry applicable guidelines and processes, product safety issues will emerge and take over headlines. Issues of product safety damage consumer and industry trust, resulting in lost revenue, loss of market share, decreased share value and loss of talent. One most recent example of the exorbitant cost related to product safety was made ominously clear in the multi-state Chipotle case. This incident caused a tragic decline in customer confidence and many days of double-digit stock value plunges.

The Solution

Site-specific training for all team members is the preventative action to reduce risks and generate positive audit results. Rigorous training programs expand food/product safety knowledge, generate a stronger culture, reduce risk, and prevent contamination. By focusing on how each employee can positively impact safety through their daily actions and contribute to the market value and customer satisfaction, employees take on a stronger safety and excellence culture, resulting in higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS).

Measurement is critical to quality control and ongoing excellence. Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) provide operating structure and validate the process to prove the system is operating as intended. These proven systems operate on a foundation of integrity that mitigates risk throughout the process of a product. No doubt the learnings there transfer to the cannabis products, especially infused products.

What’s Next?

The IPC’s goals are to raise awareness, effectuate positive change, and help establish protocols and standards for food safety, dosing, and testing within the cannabis industry. This will establish baselines from which cannabis business operators can rely upon, prevent inapplicable regulatory requirements that are not relevant to our industry, and most of all provide for the safety of consumers.

Now, when did food safety leave a bitter taste in your mouth? Precisely! Never would we need an Upton Sinclair to transform the industry from a negative outlook on the truths. Collectively we will unite and hold our operations to a standard of excellence that will be called upon during the end of cannabis probation on a national level.

URL: https://thecannabisindustry.org/committee-blog-protecting-stash-assets/

WINTER LLP UPDATE: National Cannabis Industry Association Calls On Congress To Regulate Cannabis In Response To Reports Of Vaping-Related Illnesses

Advocates cite prohibition as main driver of illicit market products linked to most cases, urge federal action, caution from producers of state-legal cannabis vape products
** Statement below from National Cannabis Industry Association Executive Director Aaron Smith **
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In recent weeks, a growing number of respiratory illness cases associated with nicotine or cannabis vaporizer (vape) cartridges have been reported, leading to increasing concern among cannabis vape cartridge consumers, regulators, and medical experts. As of early this week, more than 450 cases have been reported nationwide, including six fatal cases.
The vast majority of these reports have been linked to vape cartridges that were produced and obtained in the illicit and unregulated market, or that were adulterated by consumers. The minute number of cases that have so far been associated with legal cannabis products have not shown definitive links to those specific products. Cases have been reported in states with and without regulated cannabis markets.
Preliminary research has suggested some additive thickening agents, particularly Vitamin E acetate, as a likely cause for many of these cases. This is so far inconclusive, however, and other possible causes including pre-existing medical conditions, faulty delivery devices, or problematic consumption behavior are being explored.
In light of the indeterminate cause(s) of these illnesses and variance in state regulations regarding vape cartridges, the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) makes the following recommendations:
Congress is urged to immediately remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and begin to sensibly regulate this substance in a manner similar to alcohol and other consumables, and to make funds immediately available to state medical authorities to investigate these cases.
Licensed vape cartridge producers are encouraged to halt the use, if any, of additive thickening agents until more data is available.
Given the preliminary reported association of some illness cases with Vitamin E acetate, any licensed producer that has included this additive in recent vape product batches is strongly encouraged to issue a voluntary recall of those products.
Licensed cannabis retailers are encouraged to take steps to ensure none of their available vape cartridge inventories have been sourced from a producer that uses Vitamin E acetate.
Cannabis vape cartridge consumers are urged to immediately cease the use of any product obtained from the illicit market and to limit any future purchases of vape cartridges and other cannabis products to state-licensed, regulated businesses.
Statement from Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association:
“These unfortunate illnesses and deaths are yet another terrible, and largely avoidable, consequence of failed prohibition policies. Current federal laws interfere with research, prevent federal regulatory agencies from establishing safety guidelines, discourage states from regulating cannabis, and make it more difficult for state-legal cannabis businesses to displace the illicit market. These policies are directly bolstering the markets for untested and potentially dangerous illicit products.
The fact that so few of these cases have so far reported any link whatsoever to the legal cannabis market is a testament to the effectiveness of state regulators and licensed businesses at ensuring product reliability. As an industry, however, we view it as our duty to make sure whatever is causing these illnesses is not replicated in legal products and to work toward enacting regulations that can prevent similar public health issues from occurring in the future. The legal cannabis industry is paying very close attention to any new information provided by medical authorities regarding these cases.
It is now the responsibility of Congress to end prohibition and regulate cannabis without delay. By removing cannabis from the schedule of controlled substances and instituting a clear regulatory framework through existing agencies, the federal government can provide helpful guidance to states that have or wish to establish regulated cannabis control systems while helping put irresponsible illicit market producers out of business for good.
We are deeply saddened by this situation and sincerely hope the specific causes are determined as soon as possible to help avoid further suffering. We stand ready to work with Congress and federal regulators on the long-term solution to this problem, which is replacing prohibition with sound regulations.”
Cannabis is legal for adults in 11 states, Guam, and the District of Columbia, and 33 states as well as several territories have comprehensive medical cannabis laws. The substance is legal in some form in 47 states.

Link: https://thecannabisindustry.org/press-releases/national-cannabis-industry-association-calls-on-congress-to-regulate-cannabis-in-response-to-reports-of-vaping-related-illnesses/?utm_campaign=NCIA%20Content&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_QSGQOOUPW2CVU63lHKv4RXl7YRUvTsGpKRHsO9swsh_5rrOkTfeHKGehMwDrtuuNl83i7iXHoyIsEIsoORc2qErwSiiiBfwYPnz1hykydjFQ13F8&_hsmi=76719797&utm_content=76719797&utm_source=hs_email&hsCtaTracking=f4f9fce2-1e48-448c-aa85-3ab7c5e30145%7C1f416949-6f18-4b31-8b46-2e20b9209df7