Despite having significant medicinal properties, having significantly lower rates of addiction, and having minimal costs to society, restrictions on marketing and promotions of cannabis is similar if not more severe than that of nicotine/tobacco.  Alcohol which has little to no medicinal properties, is highly addictive, and has serious societal detriments (e.g., traffic fatalities, liver disease, cancer) is actively promoted by governments and has minimal restrictions to advertising and promotion (e.g. alcohol advertising is permitted to any age group, can have celebrity endorsements, promoted on government signage, provincial tourism advertising, any music and sporting event, etc.).

Provincial retail cannabis stores do not make the purchase of cannabis an enjoyable experience. Cannabis products cannot be viewed, smelled, or sampled, once again in contrast to that of alcohol.

Packaging of cannabis has garnered lots of negative comments from consumers who see it as incredibly unsustainable (especially in over-packaging of 10mg edibles). Cannabis packaging should permit more colours, more graphics, and content.

The limited information that producers are allowed to advertise on their packaging and in-store also drives THC inflation. As cannabis consumers become more sophisticated, allowing producers to advertise & label packages with taste, aroma, experience, etc. means consumers can choose products to meet their own tastes rather than making purchasing decisions on $ / %THC. This would help move cannabis closer to the alcohol market where consumers aren’t just chasing ABV, but rather buying products that they enjoy.

Summary of Marketing and Promotions, packaging and branding: 

• Currently regulations are very restrictive and based on current Tobacco legislation. 
• We would like to see Cannabis marketed more like alcohol (ambassadors, advertising, sponsorship) 
• We would like to see a normalized and strong consumer experience in store where products can be viewed, smelled, and even sampled (see below) 
• Better branding opportunities with packaging (continue to be child safe) but allow for more colours, graphics and content; allow producers to provide more qualitative and quantitative information on the label like tastes & aromas 
• More opportunities to help normalize consumption (lounges, outside places to consumption) 

Summary of Normalizing the customer experience in store – NSLC

• The current in-store experience does not normalize cannabis consumption
• Cannabis customer experience needs to be more like alcohol with in-store engagement, sampling to budtenders and even consumers (right products), visibility in the store, children can enter the store when accompanied by an adult (same as alcohol), Cannabis only stores, ability to consume on site or very close by
• More education for budtenders and more in store education opportunities for LPs
• Carry more SWAG and branded materials from LPs 
• More contests and promotions to build excitement 
• NSLC needs dedicated subject matter experts for Cannabis at the store level as well as at head office 
• Indica, Sativa and Hybird sales system should be changed to provide more accuracy to consumers 

Sampling 

• Currently, Health Canada allows sampling at the retail level
• Currently, NSLC does not have a sampling policy in place 
• A sampling policy should be created asap for budtenders and of age consumers