Connecticut’s recreational cannabis market is on track to record around $200 million in sales this year, with hundreds of thousands of products sold each month. But you might not know it just by looking around.
The state’s strict regulations on advertising and marketing, even product packaging, mean residents aren’t likely to see images of cannabis, cannabis products or brand names anywhere other than inside a retail establishment — where, by law, visitors must show identification proving they’re at least 21 before they’re allowed through locked doors to the sales counter.
State Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, strongly opposed the legalization of adult-use cannabis, citing the health dangers it can pose, particularly to younger users. Since the law passed, Cheeseman has advocated for measures to prevent underage use along with stringent packaging requirements.
“We obviously have legalized the retail sale but I believe that people who are going to use it are going to use it, and bright, shiny merchandising and fun names are not necessary — and indeed send the wrong message,” she said.
But cannabis businesses are looking for some relaxation of Connecticut’s rules on advertising and the limits placed on the kind of creative branding seen in other states’ markets.
Product packaging in Connecticut, for example, must be “uniformly one color,” and for edibles and beverages, labels have to be white with black writing, according to the Department of Consumer Protection’s policies and procedures. Businesses of all kinds, from growers to manufacturers and retailers, are restricted from incorporating images of their products, or people using cannabis, into their advertisements. There are also strict limits on promoting cannabis “for a wellness purpose” in marketing and advertising and offering discounts.
Adam Wood, president of the Connecticut Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said these rules can make it difficult for this state’s producers and retailers to distinguish their products and attract customers — particularly if those customers live relatively close to the Massachusetts or New York state line.
“It’s like anything else. If a consumer knows about a product, they’re more likely to buy it. If they don’t know about the product, they’re less likely to buy it,” Wood said.
“The industry participants want to provide choices for consumers, they want it to be competitive,” Wood said. “And right now, we’re at an enormous competitive disadvantage to our neighbors in Massachusetts and New York.”
Since recreational use of cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, each state that has legalized it has had to establish its own rules for regulating the market. And when it comes to advertising and packaging, Connecticut’s regulations are rigorous. While many states limit ads from reaching younger audiences and strictly prohibit labels from featuring cartoon characters or resembling existing food or candy brands, Connecticut has gone further.
“I know that it was really important to the [Connecticut] Legislature to make sure that these products were not appealing to children,” said Kaitlyn Krasselt, spokeswoman for the state Department of Consumer Protection. “It is an adult-use cannabis market, it is restricted to adults 21 and older, and particularly as you have edible products and things like that, it’s important to make sure that they cannot be confused with a non-cannabis product.”
But Krasselt said newer markets tend to start out very tightly regulated, while more mature markets like Massachusetts and Maine have eased up on earlier rules. The same could happen in Connecticut, she said.
Massachusetts and Maine approved adult-use cannabis in 2016, and retail sales began in both states within a couple of years. New York and Connecticut both legalized recreational use in 2021; New York kicked off sales in 2022 while Connecticut’s first adult-use sales started in 2023. Currently 24 states and the District of Columbia allow recreational marijuana.
Massachusetts has eased several of its rules, for example, permitting on-site consumption at cannabis establishments, allowing for more “social consumption lounges” and expanding delivery hours. This year, Maine lawmakers approved a sweeping bill that permits cannabis retailers to offer samples, allows children to enter establishments accompanied by an adult and eliminates a restriction on opaque packaging, among other things.
Connecticut isn’t there yet. And for customers, the differences are plain to see.
Fine Fettle, a chain of cannabis retailers with locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Georgia, has a glass display case in the lobby of its West Springfield, Mass. shop, where dozens of products with distinctive branding — names like Fruit Stiq, Papa’s Herb, Holiday and Liquid Diamonds — are available to peruse. On the opposite wall is a 4-foot tall replica of a canister of Baby Teeter brand blueberry infused pre-rolled joints. The shop, featuring a bright orange sign, is easy to find just across the Connecticut River from downtown Springfield, in a big-box shopping complex where it shares a parking lot with Chipotle, T.J. Maxx and other national retailers.
Patrons of Fine Fettle’s Newington, Conn. location aren’t treated to the same kind of greeting. The shop is harder to find, accessible via the back entrance to a nondescript commercial building and evident from the outside only by a building directory listing Fine Fettle in plain capital letters. There’s a doorbell to enter the lobby, where a receptionist behind a glass partition asks for identification before allowing customers to enter the retail floor.
The friendliness of the salespeople — or “budtenders,” as they’re called — is consistent at both locations, but those in Massachusetts have more to work with. Several bins of different products sit just beyond the counter in West Springfield, giving budtenders the ability to show multiple options to customers and help them compare attributes and ingredients.
In Newington, products are locked in a back room, and while Connecticut budtenders offer guidance with selection, the items they bring out to show customers are all the same color, much like pharmacy bottles.
“It just doesn’t help in product selection,” said Paolo Amenta, general manager and dispensary pharmacist at the Newington location. “Other states allow where you can actually open the product, review it, smell it. There’s more of an experience that way, versus just looking at a picture.” Knowledgeable budtenders can certainly describe the products, Amenta said, “but it does make the shopping experience not as intimate, I’d say.”
Fine Fettle Executive Benjamin Zachs said it’s understandable, in such an early stage of Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis market, that lawmakers are doing everything they can to restrict access to underage users. “One of the most important things that we can do as an industry is be unbelievably compliant to prove doubters wrong,” he said. “We need to change the expectation that people have and show everyone that we run safe, tested, compliant, professional businesses that are also not in your face.”
Still, Zachs said, it’s expensive to operate this way and it’s possible that could impede the market’s growth. For example, larger brands with national recognition might not be inclined to enter a market where they can’t promote their products.
Basic legal compliance already makes cannabis an expensive and complicated market to break into in Connecticut. And given other relatively high costs of running a business in this state, the potential reward may just not be worth it for cannabis investors if they can’t compete the way they’d like to.
“If you saw a Snickers package next to a ‘Chocolate covered brown nougat with peanuts,’ what are you more likely to buy?” Zachs said.
“If you go into our [Connecticut] stores, you notice, as much as we might try, the merchandising is not great,” he said. “Because who wants to merchandise a white box or a white pill bottle? … It’s very hard to market your product.”
Cheeseman, who is currently running for reelection, took issue with that argument. “I’m a firm believer that the best way to keep your customers coming back is to give good customer service, not having the shiniest, sexiest merchandise,” she said. “That’s true whether you’re selling cannabis or candy.”
But Zachs and Wood hope that, given how well licensed operators have been following the rules so far, lawmakers might be willing to adjust the restrictions on advertising and marketing — or, potentially, delegate such rulemaking to the Department of Consumer Protection.
Wood said he anticipates several proposals could come before the Legislature during the upcoming 2025 session, which begins in January. Connecticut cannabis operators are also pushing to ease the current restrictions on THC potency, another area where Massachusetts products have an advantage.
“It’s always easier to start strict and loosen regulations,” Krasselt said. “People often forget that it’s a young market nationally, too. It’s only been 10 or 11 years since the first states legalized cannabis. So everyone is learning, and learning from each other, and everything will continue to get better and evolve.”
H/T: ctmirror.org
