‘I don’t see a benefit to public health’
No changes were proposed to the tight restrictions on advertising contained in the bill, nor are any planned, said a Health Canada spokesperson.
However, the regulations did open the door to branding on packages. They propose “strict limits on the use of colours, graphics and other special characteristics of packaging to curtail the appeal of products to youth.”
That wording does not suggest plain packaging, and leaves room for interpretation.
A 60-day public consultation on the regulations has begun.
Creating brands is important for the new industry, says lawyer Matt Maurer, head of the cannabis industry group at Toronto firm Minden Gross. “They are all selling the same thing. How do you get people to try you?”
However, tight advertising restrictions won’t be a critical blow to cannabis companies, which have creative marketing teams that will find ways to promote products, he said. They are allowed to give away branded T-shirts, hats and other products, for instance, he said.
As public consultations begin, the debate shifts to what will be allowed on packages, which are themselves a powerful form of promotion. Public-health advocates had called for plain packages.
“I struggle to think of any public health benefit to promoting these products beyond making them accessible and giving people the opportunity to identify different product features,” said David Hammond, a scientist and professor at the University of Waterloo School of Public Health and Health Systems.
He’s spent 20 years researching the impact of health warnings, product labels, branding and marketing on tobacco, food and cannabis.
Hammond said there’s no credible evidence that advertising and branding are needed to lure people away from dealers and illegal dispensaries.
After all, millions of Canadians now smoke black-market pot in the absence of mass advertising, and the packaging of choice is a plastic baggie, he said.
The major factors that will bring people into the legal market are price, availability and product variety, he said. The contention that customers will have trouble identifying legal products without branding “verges on the ridiculous,” he says. They will know what’s legal by where it’s purchased, he said.
The guidelines proposed by the coalition of growers say they will only promote brands, not cannabis in general, and will not include any promotions that appeal to young people.
“That’s fine in theory, but in practice that’s not how it works,” Hammond said. “The sort of imagery that appeals to a 19-year-old legal established user — surprise! — it also appeals to a 14-year-old non-user.”
Partial restrictions on branding are less effective in protecting public health than plain packages, he said. If branding is allowed, the government would have to police potentially thousands of cannabisrelated products to determine if their packages were attractive to youth or promoted a positive lifestyle, he said.
“It’s very difficult for the government to go after the fact and say, ‘You should stop using pink clouds or pink swooshes.’ ”
Not to mention the difficulty in determining whether pink swooshes violate the rules. “Pink designs. A flower. Is that a lifestyle product or not?”
The tobacco industry has shown how package design can promote products, even when part of the pack is plastered with gruesome health warnings, say public health advocates.
“Research has shown that you can use colours, you can use images that aren’t explicitly lifestyle images, but still target these things toward younger people, toward youth, towards women or men,” Hammond said. “I don’t see a benefit to consumers and I don’t see a benefit to public health, and that is supposed to be the rationale for legalization.”
Cannabis executives hate being compared to Big Tobacco. It’s unfair, given the relative harm caused by the two products, said Cam Battley, a vice-president at Aurora, one of the country’s largest growers. Cannabis has medicinal benefits, and when used recreationally causes fewer public-health problems than alcohol, he noted.
Michael DeVillaer, a faculty member with the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research in Hamilton who has worked for four decades with addiction agencies, agrees. Most drug-related “morbidity, mortality and costs to the economy” are from alcohol and tobacco, he said.
However, cannabis is not benign. Regular use cause long-lasting damage to the developing brains of people under 25, smoking pot creates the same toxins and cancer-causing chemicals as smoking cigarettes, and users can develop a dependency.
The government should learn from the harm caused by aggressive promotion and the pursuit of revenue in the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, DeVillaer says.
He rejects the suggestion that cannabis should be governed by advertising restrictions similar to those on alcohol.
“Alcohol use and promotion is a big problem,” DeVillaer said in an interview. “So their recommendation is, ‘Let us do it, too?’ ”
Several cannabis company executives said they will rely on a reputation for quality to promote their products.
“Colours and fonts are not the way we want to sell our products,” said Avtar Dhillon, executive chairman of Emerald Health Therapeutics. His B.C. company will probably use revenue from recreational-cannabis sales to help pay for the development of medical-marijuana products, he said.
Using celebrities to sell products is not credible, Dhillon said. “We don’t need sexy images and celebrities saying, ‘Hey, come on, try it!’ ”
Dhillon said he could accept “non-attractive” packaging, but company names and logos should be allowed so people can recognize where the product is coming from.
Sébastien St. Louis, chief executive of Gatineau grower Hydropothecary, says companies will be allowed to provide information in cannabis stores. “That’s all we need and all we want.”
However, the visual aid of distinctive packaging and a logo will help adults who have already made the decision to go into a cannabis store to identify the brand they want, he said.
The restrictive approach to advertising and branding is no surprise, said Ottawa lawyer Trina Fraser, who specializes in cannabis law. It’s consistent with the “slow, steady” approach the federal government has taken to legalizing marijuana, she said.
The sort of imagery that appeals to a 19-year-old legal established user — surprise! — it also appeals to a 14-year-old non-user.