Florida Workshop to Discuss What Constitutes a ‘Cartoon’ in Hemp Packaging

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is hosting a workshop on Wednesday to discuss what constitutes a “cartoon” and other questions regarding hemp product packaging that could be deemed “attractive to children,” the News Service of Florida reports.

The workshop is specifically covering new rules proposed to implement a piece of 2023 legislation regulating hemp-derived intoxicants. The bill included product testing requirements, licensing rules, and restrictions against hemp products targeting children.

According to that law, what’s considered “attractive to children” is anything “manufactured in the shape of humans, cartoons, or animals; manufactured in a form that bears any reasonable resemblance to an existing candy product that is familiar to the public as a widely distributed, branded food product such that a product could be mistaken for the branded product, especially by children; or containing any color additives. The proposed packaging rules would specifically ban the use of cartoons, or “any drawing or other depiction of an object, person, animal, creature, or any similar caricature” that uses “comically exaggerated features,” applies human characteristics to non-human characters, or the attribution of “unnatural or extra-human capabilities,” the report said.

Hemp industry attorney Paula Savchenko said in the report that “the industry fully supports reasonable, well-defined regulations,” but uncertainties about the rule proposed by officials “have “”have raised legitimate concerns.”

“The language in the rule, such as prohibitions on ‘comically exaggerated features’ or ‘unnatural abilities,’ is highly subjective. This creates uncertainty for businesses that are trying to comply in good faith, especially when similar design elements are allowed in other regulated industries like dietary supplements, energy drinks, or alcohol.” — Savchenko, via the News Service of Florida