Relates to warning labels on cannabis products; includes advertising, deceptively advertising, branding, marketing, packaging, displaying, labelling, offering for ingestion outside of packaging, or administering cannabis products in contravention of a certain section of the cannabis law or rules and regulations in the criminal sale of cannabis in the first degree.
STATE OF NEW YORK
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3640
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
January 29, 2025
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Introduced by Sens. MURRAY, BORRELLO, OBERACKER, RHOADS -- read twice
and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee
on Investigations and Government Operations
AN ACT to amend the cannabis law, in relation to warnings on retail
packaging of adult-use cannabis products; and to amend the penal law,
in relation to criminalizing certain violations of restrictions on the
sale of adult-use cannabis
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivisions 2, 3 and 7 of section 81 of the cannabis law
2 are amended to read as follows:
3 2. Such regulations shall include, but not be limited to, requiring
4 that:
5 (a) packaging meets or exceeds requirements similar to the federal
6 "poison prevention packaging act of 1970," 15 U.S.C. Sec 1471 et seq.;
7 (b) prior to delivery or sale at a retailer, cannabis and cannabis
8 products shall be labeled according to regulations and placed in a
9 resealable, child-resistant package accompanied by conspicuous warnings
10 in large, bold-face, legible, unobscured, and visible font contained
11 either on the retail packaging, or if a marketing layer is used, the
12 marketing layer; and the majority of said package shall depict that it
13 is a cannabis product, including unconventional methods of adminis-
14 tration or ingestion or edible consumption of cannabis products; and
15 (c) packages, labels, shapes and products shall not be made to be
16 attractive to or target persons under the age of twenty-one.
17 3. Such regulations shall include requiring labels warning consumers
18 of any potential impact on human health resulting from the consumption
19 of cannabis products that shall be affixed to those products when sold,
20 if such labels are deemed warranted by the board and may establish
21 standardized and/or uniform packaging and labeling requirements for
22 adult-use products. All labels shall be required to warn consumers to
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04399-01-5
S. 3640 2
1 keep said cannabis products out of reach of children and that they are
2 for use by persons twenty-one years of age and older.
3 7. The packaging, sale, marketing, branding, advertising, labeling or
4 possession by any licensee of any cannabis product not labeled or
5 offered in conformity with rules and regulations promulgated in accord-
6 ance with this section shall be grounds for criminal prosecution as
7 provided in article two hundred twenty-two of the penal law, in addition
8 to the imposition of a fine, and/or the suspension, revocation or
9 cancellation of a license in accordance with the provisions of this
10 chapter.
11 § 2. Section 222.60 of the penal law, as added by chapter 92 of the
12 laws of 2021, is amended to read as follows:
13 § 222.60 Criminal sale of cannabis in the first degree.
14 A person is guilty of criminal sale of cannabis in the first degree
15 when [he or she] such person knowingly and unlawfully sells more than
16 five pounds of cannabis or more than two pounds of concentrated
17 cannabis, or advertises, deceptively advertises, brands, markets, pack-
18 ages, displays, labels, offers for ingestion outside of packaging, or
19 administers cannabis products, including unconventional methods of
20 administration or ingestion or edible consumption of cannabis products,
21 in contravention of section eighty-one of the cannabis law or rules and
22 regulations promulgated by the New York State Cannabis Control Board or
23 Office of Cannabis Management.
24 Criminal sale of cannabis in the first degree is a class D felony.
25 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
