Traditional flip-top cigarette box designs can easily tear, making them essentially useless at blocking children from opening them. But Contempo’s new design solves that issue, opening up like a cigarette box if you follow the directions.

“Since Contempo started in the cannabis industry eight years ago, everyone always wanted a child-resistant cigarette box,” Contempo Specialty Packaging CEO Michael Markarian told Forbes in an email. “The requests were non-stop. It’s a familiar packaging format that consumers want and love, but the challenge was that the flip-top design was very vulnerable to ripping during child-resistant testing, which is a compliance necessity in most states for pre-rolls.”

Contempo is a second-generation family business, originally founded in 1979 in Providence, Rhode Island. Among many other industries, the business shifted into cannabis packaging for concentrates, edibles, vapes, flower, and pre-rolls. These come in many forms, from tins to glass and paper. This includes child-resistant mylar bags and glass jars that are difficult to open without reading the directions.

Within the cannabis industry, there’s a push to create appealing packaging to compete with other brands, while also making packaging less attractive to children. Recently, many cannabis companies have made an effort to invest in sustainable packaging, slowly moving away single-use plastic packaging like mylar, pop-tops, and plastic pre-roll containers. Many of them do it to appeal to customers who often ask specifically for brands that make sustainable choices. Contempo’s team has showcased their sustainable wares at events like MJBizCon.

“Additionally, creating this box using plastic parts would have been much easier to pass child-resistant testing, however that makes the box far less recyclable,” Markarian said. “The perfect blend of a beautiful branded box, with child-resistant certification, plus a true and genuine sustainability story that brands can tell makes it an incredible option that is getting lots of interest and true excitement from cannabis operators.”

Child-Resistant Cannabis Packaging For Pre-Rolls

The new design is difficult to open improperly, making it unlikely a child will figure it out. The two choices, the FSC-certified box and recycled box, are both being easily recyclable at end-of-life. Their customizable size can accommodate different pre-roll sizes and quantities.

A 2023 report from Headset found that pre-rolls made up 15.3% of total cannabis sales in the U.S. and 33.3% of total sales in Canada. Recent data from Headset projects that the pre-roll market will generate $5 billion in revenue by 2030.

This new box is a small investment, given the need for safety. In a worst-case scenario, this cigarette box could spare a parent from a call to a poison control center. New York, Connecticut, and North Carolina poison control centers say calls for children that accidentally consume cannabis products are spiking.

To prevent situations like this, parents can be mindful of design choices that aren’t accessible to children. A great way to do that is with child-resistant packaging like Contempo’s new design.