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This Interim Solution to the Health Canada-Rejected Trailer Park Buds Packaging is Actually Quite On-Brand

Article by Emma Spears, Regina Leader-Post

The company behind the embattled Trailer Park Buds brand, which was rejected by Health Canada for being non-compliant with the Cannabis Act, decided against repackaging the discount nugs originally planned to be promoted by east coast celebs the Trailer Park Boys. Instead, in what many would call a very on-brand move, they simply redacted the “Trailer Park” part on the outside of the package — possibly with a black Sharpie — so it simply reads “Buds.”

Wes Breault and Bill Evans, the owners of The GreenEasy cannabis shop in Strathmore, Alta., took to Twitter on July 20 to show off the revised logo. The redaction came as a bit of a surprise when the boxes arrived from the AGLC (and no, they were not given a warning or a discount for the modified packaging). But Breault points out, the now-compliant fix is actually pretty on-brand for the Trailer Park Boys.

“It’s exactly what [the Trailer Park Boys] would have done in this situation,” he says.

Back in June, Health Canada made it clear that Trailer Park Buds, a line of cannabis from Organigram’s Edison promoted by the Trailer Park Boys, was in violation of federal promotion prohibitions that prohibit celebrity endorsements and would have to be re-branded for sale.

The company announced that it would be “making some changes to its newly launched brand and logo. In the immediate term, Organigram will move to a modified version of the logo,” according to a corporate update released by the licensed producer.

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And make modify the logo they did. But instead of the slick packaging that New Brunswick-based Edison has become known for, the change was a bit more… DIY than expected.

“We’re talking it in stride,” laughs Evans, who was surprised the celebrity-backed brand made it as far as it did. Evans adds that despite the branding issues, the cannabis is reasonably priced and of good quality.

Organigram’s reps did not confirm if the redactions were made with permanent marker, but CEO Greg Engel told The GrowthOp that “the brand has been altered from Trailer Park Buds to Buds and the package you may have seen would have Trailer Park redacted and you only now see the word Buds on the package,” in an email.

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The redacted packages won’t last long. Engel says that the company is “moving towards an alternative name in the future and worked closely with Health Canada on this temporary solution of using Buds as the brand name.”

There are still traces of the Boys remaining on the packaging, as evidenced by un-censored cultivar names like Two Birds Sativa and Itodasco Indica. Other celebs have gotten away with more indirect nods to their fame or work: Toronto-born rapper Drake’s Canopy collab, More Life Growth Co., is a nod to his popular 2017 mixtape. Snoop Dogg’s Leafs By Snoop is labelled LBS (which Breault thinks sounds more like a bowel disorder than a cannabis brand).