Today’s deep dive will be into what has been the number one complaint of legal cannabis: Packaging. We will explain why the packaging exists the way it does, why those reasons for its existence aren’t sufficient, and why, despite being the most criticized aspect of legalization, it is packaging which makes us the most optimistic for what legal cannabis could be in Canada.
1.
We first found cannabis at the edge. It was far enough back into our species’ history that little edge could be found, that only slight separation existed between the land our ancestors could clear and the nature which surrounded them, but in that edge grew cannabis.
It grew, frankly, amidst the trash. Our ancestors knew, even back then, to keep their waste separate from the area in which they lived. And so these mounds of waste-of shell and bone and excrement and seed which had been found, shared and passed on and passed through-were pushed out to the edge of where their tepid settlement met with the wild.
In these mounds of waste lay nutrients, and in those nutrients lay the chance for life to take root. Cannabis, adapted to take advantage of disturbed ground and unblocked sun, was among the plants which grew among the trash. At some time in our past, an ancestor of ours noticed that in the waste grew something of worth. They noticed that though these piles were best kept far away, there nonetheless was something valuable which had taken root. That, sprouting from the trash, there was something worth bringing in from the edge.
2.
Here we are in 2020, with cannabis once again brought in from the edge. Where only recently we were forced by law to keep cannabis far away, legalization allows us to bring the plant into our houses, into our bodies, without fear. Legalization means many things, many of them good. You can trust that the cannabis you buy, like the milk and coffee on the corner store shelf, has a promise of safety, with liability for those producers who break that promise. It is no longer required to know and trust the producer directly to ensure that the flower you are about to inhale is not laced with heavy metals. More than that, you can ensure the flower you are about to inhale was not grown in a method similar to what Annie Lowrey describes in the Atlantic:
“Trespass grows also hurt the natural environment in not-so-subtle ways. Growers divert an estimated 9 billion gallons of water a year, enough to supply 30,000 homes. In some places, that diversion accounts for a quarter or even half of a given watershed’s total surface flow. To protect their plants, the cartels use rodenticides and pesticides that are banned in the United States. These chemicals are eaten by animals, and make their way into the groundwater. More than 90 percent of California’s mountain lions have been exposed to pesticides, as well as 80 percent of Pacific fishers and 70 percent of northern spotted owls.”
Canada’s legalization of cannabis has been imperfect. There have been problems of initial product dryness, misjudged demand and costly barriers to entry preventing some of BC’s legendary craft growers from gaining accreditation. Legalization has also ensured that the bud you buy will not be the result of some trespass grow on public land, tainting the water and land we have set aside for nature as a society. Independent testing, sealed containers and excise stamps give us confidence in that fact, confidence which would not exist if we sold in bulk, where dirty flower could be made indistinguishable from clean. For the safety of the flower we sell and for the morality of our industry, traceable and sealed packaging is a step forward.
However, it is also unsatisfactory. Legalization has solved the problems of traceability and product safety the same way it has solved those problems for the milk and coffee on the shelf of the corner store: seal it and entomb it in plastic. It is a terrible design to have the packaging last for hundreds of years after the thing inside the packaging is consumed. The design is even more inadequate when that packaging is made from hydrocarbons, throwing greenhouse gasses up into the air as a normal byproduct of production. Half a century ago, plastic was a breakthrough. It was cheap, light and durable and made much of the modern economy possible. Now it is one of the things we need to replace with something better if we are to pass on a better world than the one we have inherited.
3.
There is a reason why our community’s reaction to sealed and entombed cannabis has been one of near-unanimous outrage, a reaction that does not occur in response to similarly sealed milk, to coffee just as entombed. And that is because we who have made cannabis part of our lives are more comfortable at the edge.
Where others were scared off by claims of the risks of cannabis-of fried brain pans and gateways, first to heavier drugs and then to sure ruin - those of us who tried the flower were willing to find out for ourselves. Learning that it was misunderstood, that it could better a life, we went to the edge: of norm and law and political feasibility, to make our case to others who would not venture as far as we would.
And we won. Between the hours of 9 am and 11 pm and with two pieces of ID, you can purchase cannabis from us at Muse. You can pay with your Visa. We are able to deposit the money we make each day into a bank, and some of that money goes to support the building of roads and bridges, the funding of hospitals. This is the case not only within our city or province but across the whole of Canada. We are now part of society.
4.
Many of us are frustrated because legalization has meant hitching us to broader society. Because making cannabis part of broader society has meant taking ideas which were accepted by broader society and applying them to cannabis. For those of us who are comfortable at the edge of things, many of those ideas are inadequate.
Ideas like marketing which conceals rather than reveals. aking from the commons without giving back and giving preference to companies who choose to grow large over those companies who choose to grow well. Ideas like plastic packaging.
Ideas that, like plastic, may have previously served a purpose, but which nevertheless are among the things we need to replace with something better if we are to pass on a better world than the one we have inherited.
Ideas like plastic, which despite our government agreeing that it would be worthwhile to replace with something better, nevertheless remains a part of our economy. The merits of better possibilities may be discussed. Still, because of inertia, fear of change and the inevitable difficulties that come with trying something new, these better possibilities remain possibilities, no matter how seriously discussed.
Change-fearing, hesitant, unwilling to reach for something better: these are descriptors which I would not apply to the cannabis community. Legalization itself is evidence that if we see a better way is possible, we are willing to push and fall down and get back up to push again to make change happen. The source of frustration in our community with legalization, then, is the same reason why we at Muse are excited to be part of the legal market: the cannabis community is now part of Canadian society.
5.
Because cannabis is legal does not mean that the way it is currently grown and sold is perfect. It’s not. It also does not mean that we should stop pushing for better ways of doing things. We shouldn’t. It just means that when we push for better ways, we can now do so as citizens, not felons. Legal cannabis also gives us a place, some parcel of land on the edge of society, where those better ways can first take root.
It is fitting, then, to look first amidst the trash; to see if there exists a better way to ensure the safety of cannabis without adding to the mountains of trash we as a society produce. That is what we at Muse have begun to do. We are researching why the packaging is the way it is, what is preventing cannabis producers from trying something different, and how leaders in other industries have created better alternatives. We will post what we find to our site so that our community can learn with us, and we will ask you for your help, as you may be able to see something that we cannot.
There is a chance that there is nothing to be found. That the current system exists the way it does for good reasons. Or, that, as a single cannabis store, Muse is not able to make change, even if we found change worth making. But maybe a better way does exist. And if we start looking, if there are enough of us who care if that better way is found, if we reach out to a producer brave enough to find out with us, maybe we can find it. We can find, sprouting from the trash, something worth bringing in from the edge.
A Special Thanks to BC Sungrown Harlequin by Tantalus Labs for help in writing this piece.