Online Youth Access to Cannabis – Imminent Danger Ahead
Joan Irvine
Redondo Beach Mayoral candidate, Cannabis Advocate, RB Chamber 2024 Nonprofit of the Year, Radio Host of "Your BEST Life", Government Relations, Community Leader: Keep the Esplanade Beautiful
For many responsible cannabis license holders dealing with new, complex regulations, the word “compliance” often conveys frustration. Over time however, compliance can become a nightmarish scenario of never-ending action items growing proportionately to the number of emails and text messages besieging cannabis business owners. License holders know that one mistake may cost them dearly, and these are for issues known to them. People are so focused on keeping their heads above water for complying with existing regulations that they’re oblivious to imminent dangers lurking just below the surface.
One of these unseen yet paramount dangers for a cannabis brand is ineffective online youth safety efforts. In this era of social media and messaging apps, do you know that in California, companies cannot communicate with people under 21 in any way? Similarly, most U.S. states and Canada implemented basic regulations for blocking online youth access, generally referred to as “age gates.” The three most common are:
· Are you 21: Yes or No?
· Birthdate Verifiers
· Actual Age Verification Services
Furthermore, did you know that if you engage any form of online advertising from any vendor for your cannabis brand, that the legal burden falls to you as the licensed cannabis brand to ensure that every venue where you advertise on the internet or elsewhere, is serving your ads to an audience that is at least 60% (or more based on State Regulations) of proper adult age to view the ads?
In a sign of this problematic issue rising to the surface, Health Canada recently stated that the current self-affirming age gates ('Are you 21?' and Birthdate Verifiers), are insufficient. However, it is not cost effective to use actual age verification to merely browse through a site. That’s no surprise to us, but the Canadian government’s public statement leaves the industry in a vulnerable legal position.
Beware of Lawyers Seeking New Revenue Sources
Unfortunately, there’s more to be concerned about than just government regulators. Lawyers are already training on how to sue cannabis businesses. One such entity is the Cannabis Industry Victims Educating Litigators (CIVEL) whose website loudly proclaims:
“THE MARIJUANA/CANNABIS INDUSTRY VICTIMIZES PEOPLE AND CAUSES MASSIVE DAMAGE. WE ASK YOU TO JOIN US IN A VITAL PROJECT TO MAKE THE MARIJUANA INDUSTRY LEGALLY ACCOUNTABLE TO THEIR VICTIMS AND OUR COUNTRY.”
You can be assured that CIVEL will seek to litigate youth safety issues because it is such easy, low hanging fruit. You may not lose your license or end up in jail, but the cost of defending your company against these aggressive trolls could bankrupt you and your company. Although the most likely outcome is that you will settle out of court – attorneys’ fees and other monetary costs can be exorbitant as are the loss of time and focus on running your company.
Reducing Your Exposure to Risk
What can be done to reduce the risk to cannabis companies? The first and best line of defense is parental filtering. Parents simply need to activate and monitor the parental filtering tools that reside on almost all modern electronic devices. Correspondingly, cannabis companies must embed specialized parental filtering codes on their sites. This combination blocks access to any inquiries and places responsibility (and liability) on both the site owner and the parents. Enabling parental filtering on the site can be a powerful defense and may deter parents and others from threatening litigation against the cannabis industry.
Adam Thierer, in writing for the Progress & Freedom Foundation, noted: “Parental control technologies are now ubiquitously available, increasingly easy to use, and also increasingly free-of-charge. Indeed, there has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them decide what constitutes acceptable media content in their homes and in the lives of their children.”
The First Steps for Youth Safety
What does ResponsiTech recommend for companies in the cannabis industry? To start:
- Embed its Responsible Youth Safety (RYS) parental filtering code on all entry point/pages to your site.
- Continue to use self-affirming age gates for initial entry as a secondary safeguard.
- And of course, use an age verification service for any purchase; especially for delivery.
- Let a qualified marketing compliance expert conduct an audit of all of your brand’s internet and social media profiles
By establishing and adopting an industry-standard parental filtering (RYS), it demonstrates there is an industry effort to self-regulate as it relates to youth safety. Also, because different U.S. states and countries will have different requirements, the industry will rise above what is legally required – resulting in a higher level of compliance. This is both good for your company and the international cannabis industry as a whole.
There are other less visible but equally important benefits:
- Your employees who have children will appreciate your extra effort.
- Your employees will feel empowered about working in the industry, serving as ambassadors, talking openly and with pride that their employer is doing all it can to prevent youth access.
- Other companies will feel more comfortable working with your company because you are making a profound effort to prevent youth access. That could include improved access to banking and advertising services, which is priceless!
- RYS execution demonstrates your company’s corporate social responsibility.
How We Know ResponsiTech’s Youth Safety Solution Works
Previous, groundbreaking success set the stage for our current online youth safety endeavors. Our two co-founders have been involved in online youth safety in age-restricted industries and the Internet for over twenty years. The first parental filter (age gate) they developed for another age-restricted industry was adopted worldwide on 4.5 million sites. They received the American Society of Association Executives 2008 ‘Associations Make a Better World’ award; a U.S. Congressional Commendation from Congresswoman Jane Harman; and, recognitions from several California legislators and cities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego. For details about the awards, read more here.
The polices they established for a ‘high-risk’ TLD (Top Level Domain) were adopted by ICANN for all other risk domains. Another Co-Founder is on the British Standards Institute Age Verification Committee, and is the CEO of an age verification company. The founders have worked with international law enforcement, legislators, governments, financial institutions, and other child protection agencies.
Online youth safety for the cannabis community is much more than a lofty ideal, it is a concrete reality. According to Markets and Research.com, the global medical cannabis market is expected to reach a value of $44.4 Billion by 2024. Yes, the stigma of cannabis is easing worldwide as nations once again discover the cannabis plant’s many medicinal benefits. However, as with any medicinal or adult-oriented product, online safety standards and access protections must be in place.
In a recent Online Harms White Paper, the British government declared, “Given the prevalence of illegal and harmful content online, and the level of public concern about online harms, not just in the UK but worldwide, we believe that the digital economy urgently needs a new regulatory framework to improve our citizens’ safety online.” The worldwide status quo of essentially unchecked youth access to cannabis websites is about to end, and ResponsiTech is the global solution for this new reality.
In future articles, ResponsiTech will address how to mitigate risk in website design, advertising, affiliate programs, and how to prepare to be accepted as a client by banks and merchant processors.
Learn more about us on our site, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Joan Irvine, ResponsiTech Co-Founder & CEO, brings over two decades of policy development, government relations, and advocacy for online child protection in ‘high-risk’ industries to the cannabis industry. She successfully spearheaded an international award-winning parental filtering label and worked with First Amendment, Internet Security, and Privacy attorneys and international law enforcement to establish online child protection.
Founder & CEO, Media & Branded Content Strategist, D2C E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship | Cannabis Industry Expert, Investor, Public Speaker & Educator
5 年Excellent article and eloquent feedback/comments!
Music Law, Cannabis Advocate and Environmental Warrior
5 年I am so glad experienced people like you in online security are researching viable solutions to help keep kids safe.
Redondo Beach Mayoral candidate, Cannabis Advocate, RB Chamber 2024 Nonprofit of the Year, Radio Host of "Your BEST Life", Government Relations, Community Leader: Keep the Esplanade Beautiful
5 年Hi Tim, This will be a long response since you stated: ‘What I see is opportunity seekers outside the cannabis community/industry hoping to get attention in a prospering industry off the backs of children.’ I want those people who don’t know me to learn more about my background that is not included in my profile (but please read my profile and read the referenced White Papers). You, me, and many people are bringing our years of experience in other industries to the cannabis industry; very few come from years in our industry. However, I can say that I have been a consumer (in the community) for more years than most in the industry have been alive. Your experience is in security, law enforcement and with children in 18 schools for 25 years. Thank you for working directly with the children and parents and being part of LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnership). My 20 years of experience is in ONLINE youth safety and developing policies and technology for ‘high risk’ industries. This started in the adult entertainment industry where we managed a child pornography reporting hotline like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children – whom we worked with - along with the FBI, Interpol, and many other law enforcement agencies. BTW one of our Co-Founders still works with international law enforcement on sex trafficking cases. But what relates to our industry is the parental control filter, policy development, and monitoring companies’ websites to verify compliance to these policies. This helps protect the industry as much as it does children; it is a delicate balance. In 2005 we were solicited by Microsoft to develop an ‘industry label’ that parental control filters could block. We were successful as is demonstrated by the several Letters of Recognition from legislators and is documented in a white paper - https://www.rtalabel.org/rtapaper/rta-label-paper-final.pdf.? But how does one do this while respecting the First Amendment, privacy, not blocking access to the Internet, etc.? With help from the industry lawyers, businesses, online age-restricted advertising experts, and many others, we developed REASONABLE solutions that provided joint responsibility of parents and the industry and were deemed acceptable by lawyers, law enforcement, child protection agencies, Internet companies, and the industry. Not an easy task, but we did it! I am very proud of this and optimistic that we will do this again. We also had discussions with prominent mainstream payment companies and the largest search engines that wanted to do business with this industry, BUT were concerned about youth access. They determined that working with our vetted members would allow this, so they did not try to block the entire industry. Next I worked for a company that developed online youth safety Internet policies for ‘high-risk’ TLD (Top Level Domain) that ICANN (who manages the Internet) integrated into their policies. I was honored to work with some of the top legal minds in First Amendment, Privacy, Security, Law Enforcement, industry, etc. We needed to consider how business and online youth safety could co-exist. One of the Policy Council members had been the President of the ACLU for 18 years and taught at a law school. As we discussed policies, she said that the only fool-proof method to protect children would be to SHUT DOWN THE INTERNET. We all chuckled because we knew this would never happen. Once again we needed to develop reasonable policies that protected both children and business. There would not be an Internet if it was not for businesses. Because of my several decades of being in the community when cannabis was becoming legal in California, I wanted to do something that would help the industry grow and avoid the pitfalls learned from other ‘high risk’ industries. I attended several industry events to try to determine what/how. Then a friend who had established a political party in Australia, is a MP in Melbourne, and is leading the campaign for legalization in her country was meeting with the BCC in Sacramento. This was the last stop of an international research project on drug policy reform. I drove up to see her and talk about the industry and where I might fit in. She said the cannabis industry was going to have the same issues with online youth safety as the adult entertainment industry and I was uniquely qualified to address this - a ‘V8 moment.' I spent the next few months researching and talking with people, companies, associations, legislators, and many others. The final analysis was this type of online youth safety service would be necessary to facilitate industry growth. So, I pull together a team of online youth safety experts whom I had worked with for many years. Now we had the experienced people and time-tested technology to accomplish this goal. I could go on and on after 20 years in online youth safety, but this would take hours and it would be more than most people would read.? The industry can’t cure all the ills of our society as related to children and alcohol, drugs, etc. Parents have the ultimate responsibility and there are many available ‘responsible parenting’ tools. What we at ResponsiTech can do is to help our industry develop and implement the best and most reasonable effort for youth safety -- which in our case is online youth safety.
Government Affairs, Legislative advisor, Criminal Justice Reform, Patient/Veteran Cannabis Advocate, Safety/Security Specialist
5 年I applaud your optimistic efforts in the protection of children. I to am optimistic in the preservation of youth but also accept the facts of reality. Having worked with children for 25yrs in 18 schools I believe their level of infiltration and curiosity to topics is underestimated. If they want it they will find it and get it. First, how can I be sure I am not engaging those under 18yrs of age now? Simple questions on age verification hold no validity legal or otherwise on the internet. Might we first start with RPP, responsible parenting practices? May we then address the alcohol, tobacco and RX drugs our children face first in life's temptations. These are the substances harming our children. What I see is opportunity seekers outside the cannabis community/industry hoping to get attention in a prospering industry off the backs of children. Cannabis has been readily available for in the US society for years and treated via lies as the gateway drug, its a THEORY , not science. Science has debunked every pejorative move to discredit this plant. Time to accept reality and address that which is harming and killing our children rather than attack that which is helping.? ?
Make Friends, Not Clients
5 年Great article Joan Irvine!