Colorado rules going into effect Jan. 1 are intended to ensure that marijuana packaging doesn’t appeal to minors and that the packages cannot easily be opened.

The new rules on labeling should also make it easier for consumers to know what they’re consuming, Mike Hartman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, told Colorado Politics last month. The department’s Marijuana Enforcement Division is in charge of regulating the industry.

Vicente Sederberg was one of the drafters of the state’s marijuana ballot measure, Amendment 64, which was passed by voters in 2012. Now the firm helps clients prioritize regulatory compliance. The firm held class this week on complying with the new packaging regulations.

Jordan Wellington, director of compliance for Vicente Sederberg, said about 30 people attended, either in person at the firm’s Denver office or online.

“There was actually a lot of regulations changed in addition to the labeling standards, about 400 pages of regulations that contained edits,” he said. “Some of these of these are just technical edits but not actually changing a policy, but there were a lot of substantive changes around inventory protocol, required documentation, packaging, labeling, testing, and some clarifications on things like transfers.”

The class session taught compliance managers from the cannabis industry what those changes were. Most already focused on what they needed to do up to this point, Wellington said.

“If there was one issue people had concerns about, it would be around the labeling of both the container and the marketing layer, and how they’re going to achieve the labeling compliance with very small products,” he said.

Typically concentrates are sold in a container about the size of a quarter to a half dollar, he explained, “so obviously it’s a little tricky to get all the required language on something that’s so small.”

Shatter, wax, glass, kief, sift, pollen, budder – concentrates come under a variety of names, but Wellington said hash is the colloquial umbrella term that’s been used historically for all of them.

The Marijuana Enforcement Division is also planning to release a series of industry tips and bulletins to clarify different regulatory changes for the industry.

“I think it’s really important to note that we had a lot of businesses participating and sending critical team members to invest capital and labor resources into learning about the regulations but ensuring compliance,” Wellington said. “Today’s class is an example of how serious and diligent cannabis business owners are about operating within compliance of state regulations.”

The packaging and labeling changes are intended to avoid the “white noise” effect, Hartman said, which happens when there’s so much information on a label that a consumer can’t figure out the most important thing they should know about the product.

More tweaks to the law are expected, according to Wellington and legislative leaders.

“But I would not expect a significant change in the regulations to occur until next summer or fall after the legislature is in session, whatever changes they make,” Wellington said. “At least cannabis in this state seems to run on a pretty annual cycle of changes at the legislative level, followed by changes at the regulatory level, followed by the changes at the legislative level, followed by changes at the regulatory level.”