Utah Department of Health and Human Services staff told a legislative working group May 20 that the agency has implemented a first phase of patient product information inserts for medical cannabis and will update the material after further stakeholder review in June. The department said pharmacies may provide patients a printed one‑page PDF or a QR code that links to a single web page of information.

The discussion matters because the 2025 Legislature directed a process for patient information inserts and pharmacies are required to share them when available; patients and industry representatives asked the committee to make the inserts readable, practical to distribute and, over time, more specific to individual product types.

Shannon Toman Black, director of the Division of Licensing and Background Checks at the Department of Health and Human Services, described the agency's outreach and timeline. “On April 3, we met with the cannabis processors and pharmacies to consult with them about the patient product information insert,” she said. “On April 30, we sent an email to all medical cannabis pharmacies informing them that SB 64 was going into effect on May 7 and that DHHS had created a web page and a QR code to assist pharmacies with complying with the new requirement.”

Richard Oborn, director of the Center for Medical Cannabis at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said the department used statutory language as the baseline for content. “There’s some statutory guidance on what this insert should include ... 26b‑4‑201 paragraph 41 defines the patient product information insert,” he told the group, listing the kinds of items the statute specifies: “how to use the product, common side effects, serious side effects, dosage, contraindications, safe storage, information on when a product should not be used, and other information the department deems appropriate.”

Phase 1: general information, phase 2: more detail

Officials said the initial online page (medicalcannabis.utah.gov/info) is intentionally general and framed as a short question‑and‑answer resource. Oborn described plans to expand phase 2 to add information about onset and dosing differences by dosage form (capsules, vapes, flower, topicals) and to keep the resource concise and readable for patients and providers. The department is preparing a stakeholder update and expects a second stakeholder review in June before updating the PDF and the QR‑linked content.

Industry and pharmacy representatives at the meeting praised the outreach but urged the department to allow or support product‑specific material. Matthew Page, a processor and cultivator with Riverside Farm and chair of the Medical Cannabis Policy Advisory Board, said processors want the ability to give patients product‑level guidance. “We are looking at — we would like to get more specific to certain products,” he said, citing products that contain different non‑THC cannabinoids and have different effects.

Pharmacies described implementation workarounds. JD Lauritzen of WholesomeCo said his pharmacy applied the department’s QR code to customer receipts to link patients to DHHS material. Bijan Sakaki of Beehive Pharmacy said limitations in MJ Freeway, the state’s seed‑to‑sale system, made it difficult to add QR codes to receipts for some pharmacies, so his stores print the URL at the bottom of customer receipts and place the QR code at each register.

Processors asked for SKU‑level access. Justin Areola of Life Elevated and Britney King of Pooja Med said processors want to host detailed product catalogs online and put QR codes on product labels so patients can see dosing guidance, milligram amounts, terpene and cannabinoid information, and practical dosing examples for gummies, syringes and inhaled products.

Legislative concerns about burden and clarity

Several lawmakers cautioned the department to keep the inserts from becoming an onerous new compliance cost. Representative David Provo said he supported patient information but warned agencies to avoid excessive bureaucracy. “Please strive to not make this process so burdensome that it becomes another added cost, another added barrier that just makes it that much harder for patients to get their medication,” he said.

Pharmacists emphasized that patient counseling at the point of sale is required and remains central. Oborn and Shannon noted the statutory framework presumes pharmacist consultation at a patient’s first visit and said the web resource is intended to supplement, not replace, counseling.

What happens next

DHHS plans a June stakeholder review and a phased update to the single‑page PDF and website. Department staff and the Medical Cannabis Policy Advisory Board expect to continue discussions about allowing processors to provide product‑specific inserts or catalogs that the department could review or link to from the state resource.