McCormick & Company Gets Spicy Over Weed Brand’s Parody Packaging

As the American market continues to expand on rights for Americans to enjoy being super high on cannabis, the industry around those rights are expanding quickly as well. And, in a way that is somewhat akin to the craft beer explosion that occurred last decade, more and more trademark scuffles are popping up as these weed-slingers look to build brands and market their product. What trademark rights this quasi-legal business can actually gain has been an open question for some time, but we really have moved into the phase that is more aligned with the beer industry, in which weed-branding is often done in a fun and creative fashion, often times with callbacks to other cultural touchstones. And sometimes, that includes parody.

Take the case of Crabcakes & Cannabis, for instance. The Maryland based company had some fun with its branding in a way that calls back to its own name as well as local culture when it comes to food preparation, specifically by fashioning some of its merch as a parody of spice-maker McCormick & Co. If you, or someone you're close to, has ever cooked shellfish, you are likely somewhat familiar with Old Bay Seasoning.

Crabcakes & Cannabis certainly is, as evidenced by its decision to parody the branding for some stickers it sold to customers.

Now, according to the High Times article to which I linked, either a cease and desist notice was sent by McCormick to Crabcakes & Cannabis, or a lawsuit was filed, depending on which paragraph you read. For my part, I was unable to find evidence of a lawsuit being filed in the usual places, so I'm operating under the idea that this was limited to a C&D.

If that's right, the C&D is still silly. McCormick can make all the noise it wants about trademark law and the like, but this is very clear parody, protected by fair use. The company did complain in its letter that it was the association with the marijuana industry that it wanted to avoid, but that only works if they're going with a tarnishment argument, and weed is legal in Maryland. That makes the tarnishment argument harder to make, at least. On top of that, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that even the highest person in the world is going to confuse a sticker with obvious weed branding has anything to do with shrimp broil seasoning. But because trademark bullying works, and works especially well when it's a big company against a little one, Crabcakes & Cannabis is doing away with its sticker.

While we firmly believe in the protection of parody and First Amendment rights, the prohibitive cost of litigation led us to make the difficult decision to discontinue our parody sticker,"Founder of Crabcakes & Cannabis Jennifer Culpepper said in a statement We stand by the fact that no reasonable consumer would confuse our novelty item with a food seasoning product."

Culpepper continued, We deeply respect businesses' (and artists') rights to safeguard their brands, but it is paramount that we strike a balance between these rights and the freedom of expression and creativity that parody affords. When a large business bullies a small business through costly litigation, it makes standing up for your rights nearly impossible. Regardless, we still love Old Bay. Our parody sticker was intended to pay homage to the Maryland brand, not to tarnish anyone's reputation."

It's all very silly in the end, given that we're talking about a sticker for weed versus a spice company. But what is not funny is how the very concept of parody being protected speech appears to be under attack as of late.