Alabama regulators have decided that the best way to protect kids from accidentally eating weed gummies is to limit all edibles to one single flavor. And that flavor is peach.
The Cotton State’s medical marijuana program is finally getting underway after years of delay. This Monday, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) awarded 21 business licenses that will allow companies to legally grow, process, test, transport, and sell medical marijuana. The AMCC also finalized the regulations that will govern how these medicines can be packaged and sold, but the guidelines include some pretty unusual restrictions.
Alabama’s medical marijuana law, which was passed in 2021, was already one of the country’s strictest cannabis programs. Licensed dispensaries will be legally able to sell inhalers, suppositories, topical lotions, nebulizers, lozenges, and edibles, but that’s it. Patients will not be allowed to buy, grow, or smoke flower, and other forms of inhalable combustibles all remain prohibited as well.
The final AMCC guidelines add in several additional regulations that are largely targeted at stopping children from accidentally eating pot gummies. Edible producers are prohibited from displaying cartoons, realistic or fictional characters, language that might appeal to minors, or images of fruits, children, or animals. Knockoffs of existing children’s candies are strictly prohibited as well.
These child safety rules are standard practice in other states that have legalized medical or recreational cannabis. Alabama officials decided that they needed to take their own restrictions even further, though. The AMCC will only allow edibles to be produced in the form of “gelatinous cubes,” in hopes that the cube shape will further distinguish it from children’s candy. A “rectangular cuboid shape” is also acceptable, as are “rectangular cuboids.”
And in one of the weirdest rules ever to be seen in a medical marijuana program, the AMCC will only allow peach-flavored gummies and lozenges. The commission didn’t explain their decision to impose this bizarre flavor regulation, but an Alabama reporter may have figured out their reasoning. Bryan Lyman, editor of Alabama Reflector, believes that the decision probably stems from a legislative debate over the best way to protect the children.
In an early draft of the bill, state lawmakers decided that the best way to stop kids from eating gummies was to completely ban edibles from having any flavor at all. Lyman told AL.com that state Sen. Tim Melson argued against the decision, suggesting that flavorless edibles “would cause people to gag.” For some reason, lawmakers decided that the best compromise was to force every kind of cannabis edible to share the exact same flavor.
It was up to AMCC to decide what one flavor that would be, and they chose peach. It’s hard to say whether regulators thought this flavor would be especially unappealing to kids, or if they were just acknowledging one of the state’s most popular crops. But even if they are stuck with just peach, Alabamans will at least be able to access the medicine that they desperately need. Regulators expect that the state’s first dispensaries should finally open next year.
