Major food brands call for crackdown on generic THC products

A group of a dozen major food companies last week urged Congress to curb the growing number of THC-infused copycats.

Such products are widely available in cannabis stores across America. On the surface, they just look like some of the country’s most well-known junk foods like Cheetos and Oreos.

But appearances – even iconic packaging – can be deceiving, and a closer look at labels reveals that the foods are a cause rather than a cure for cravings.

Some products, like the Oreo-inspired “Stoneos,” are explicit, but others are more subtle. And according to the Washington Post, many “of the knockoff packs don’t list a manufacturer, so it’s difficult to trace them back.”

Now a coalition of food and beverage giants — including Pepsi, Kellogg and General Mills — is asking Congress to add an amendment to the Shop Safe Act, a bill “aimed at reducing the availability of harmful counterfeit products.”

In a letter to Congress last week, the companies said the current wording of the legislation “creates liability for electronic commerce platforms for advertising, selling or distributing goods with counterfeit brands implying ‘health and safety'”.

“Unfortunately, due to the technical definition of counterfeit trademarks, this language does not prohibit the sale of the above packaging and products,” the letter to Congress reads. “This should be amended to include ‘famous’ marks, a term already defined in the US Code of Laws, to extend this protection and prevent the sale of these generic THC products that clearly represent the ‘health and safety ‘ imply from children. This change is critical as it fills a gap in the existing language to address a critical health and safety issue. We ask for your support.”

The products have become ubiquitous in the United States, with nearly a dozen states now allowing the regulated sale of cannabis for adult use.

“Children are increasingly threatened by the unscrupulous use of famous brand logos, characters, trademarks and trade dress on THC-infused edible products. While cannabis (and incidental amounts of THC) may be legal in some states, the use of these famous brands, clearly without the consent of the brand owners, on food has created serious health and safety risks for consumers, especially children who may not be aware of the difference between these brands’ genuine products and the counterfeit THC products that monetize the brand’s fame,” the companies wrote in the letter.

“While law enforcement has focused on tackling illegal sales, this unscrupulous practice has highlighted a loophole in existing law – the widespread online sale of packaging leveraging these famous brands. These are real examples of packaging violating well-known brands that have been withdrawn from the market. But without congressional action, they will quickly be replaced by other unscrupulous vendors,” they continued.

Katie Denis, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Brands Association, another company that signed the letter last week, told the Washington Post that one of the challenges is that many of the counterfeit products are sold online, making them difficult to identify limit their availability.

The Washington Post reported that Denis “said that in many cases there are new companies whose sole purpose is to make fake packaging that looks like big brands, often with stoner puns and jokes woven into it (in the style of Wacky Packages- trading cards in the 1970s that parodied consumer goods)” and that manufacturers “buy the empty bags online and fill them with drug-containing products.”

“In drug busts, you find these empty Mylar bags,” Denis said. “It’s not always clear that legal action can be taken against the manufacturer of these empty sacks.”

Other companies signing the letter include SNAC International, the American Herbal Products Association, the Corn Refiners Association, the Association for Dressings & Sauces, and the Juice Products Association.