By News Service of Florida
As part of a years-long effort to keep intoxicating hemp products away from children, Florida regulators on Wednesday held a workshop to take comments on a proposed rule aimed at defining what a “cartoon” means on packaging of gummies, sodas and other items.
The proposed rule seeks to carry out a 2023 Florida law that prohibits hemp products from being “attractive to children,” which includes restrictions on products shaped like “humans, cartoons, or animals.”
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ proposal would define a cartoon as “any drawing or other depiction of an object, person, animal, creature, or any similar caricature” that meets certain criteria, including “the use of comically exaggerated features,” the “attribution of human characteristics” to animals, plants or other objects, or the “attribution of unnatural or extra-human abilities, such as imperviousness to pain or injury, X-ray vision, tunnelling at very high speeds, or transformation.”
Hemp industry officials say that, while they welcome regulation, the state law is too vague and has led inspectors to inconsistently deeming products off-limits.
Images on such products must be covered with stickers or, in some instances, taken off the shelves permanently, an expensive and time-consuming process.
At Wednesday’s workshop, Jeremy Sherman, co-founder of Texas-based Bayou City Hemp Co., suggested the department create a “preclearance” process, as some other states have adopted, to give more certainty to the industry.
“What we’re asking for today are clear rules of the road and ways to check our work before we invest. … Arbitrary, after-the-fact enforcement, especially when it’s trusted retailers in the state of Florida, creates a ripple effect that punishes the companies trying to play by the rules and rewards fly-by-night operators,” said Sherman, whose company makes THC-infused beverages.
Li Massie, an attorney who represents several hemp industry operators, pointed to part of the proposed rule that would ban “comically exaggerated features, which she said “could apply to almost any image” without further definition.
The department will accept comments on the proposal rule for 10 days and could hold another workshop after publishing a final rule.