These stickers are being made available in Menominee to put on marijuana packaging in an effort to keep cannabis products away from children.
These stickers are being made available in Menominee to put on marijuana packaging in an effort to keep cannabis products away from children.
MENOMINEE — A Menominee high school student’s idea is about to start showing up on marijuana packaging across the City of Menominee in a new effort to keep cannabis products out of the hands of children.
Menominee Mayor Casey Hoffman is rolling out a voluntary safe labels program that will provide free warning stickers for marijuana containers at home, drawing inspiration from the familiar “Mr. Yuck” poison labels that became a fixture in American kitchens decades ago.
Hoffman credits the concept to Menominee school student Melanie Rodriguez, who first raised it during a 2024 meeting of the mayor’s youth council.
“The biggest thank you I have goes to Melanie Rodriguez,” Hoffman said. “Melanie was the first person to mention this idea to me at a meeting of the Mayor’s Youth Council in 2024 … and now that idea is making a positive change across the city.”
The program, run through the mayor’s office and funded by private donors, will begin distributing free labels starting June 1. Residents will be able to pick them up at the Menominee mayor’s office, the Menominee City Police Department, the Menominee County Sheriff’s Office and a growing list of participating dispensaries.
The stickers are designed to be bright, simple and hard to miss. They are intended for adults to place directly on marijuana packaging and storage containers at home, especially edible products that look like candy or snacks.
“Through the program, adults are provided with free warning stickers that can be placed on marijuana packaging and containers in the home,” Hoffman said. “They are bright and easy to recognize labels that are intended to serve as a visual warning to children and an additional reminder for adults to safely store cannabis products out of reach.”
Some labels carry the message “Warning: Not for Kids” while others simply say “Yuck,” a deliberate nod to the Mr. Yuck campaign of the 1970s and 1980s.
Hoffman said that the throwback is intentional, because today’s marijuana edibles can be difficult to distinguish from ordinary treats.
“Just as the Mr. Yuck stickers helped deter children from potentially dangerous cleaning products, the safe labels program aims to create a recognizable warning symbol for marijuana products in today’s households,” Hoffman said. “This is especially important because so many cannabis products can be easily mistaken for candy or food.”
He pointed to THC gummies as the clearest example of that risk.
“If you look at a THC gummy, it is indistinguishable from a piece of candy,” Hoffman said. “Putting a warning label on that packaging greatly reduces a child accidentally consuming that product.”
Each label also includes a poison control phone number and messages to deter children, Hoffman said, adding that organizers “did our homework” to make sure the warnings communicate their purpose clearly.
For now, the program is strictly voluntary. Hoffman said at least four dispensaries have already agreed to distribute the stickers by request and ultimately he hopes every shop in the city will keep a roll by the register and tuck labels into every bag.
Behind the scenes, however, the mayor has been pushing for a more permanent funding stream. He wants the city council to amend Menominee’s marijuana ordinance to dedicate a share of cannabis tax revenue to prevention work, mirroring what he says other communities are already doing.
“The appropriate course of action is to amend Menominee’s marijuana ordinance to include money allocated towards prevention programs, that is what every other city receiving cannabis tax dollars does, Menominee should do that also,” Hoffman said. “In the absence of that funding, I am picking up the mantle to help make sure we have prevention programs in place until the city council gets on board.”
Hoffman estimates the safe labels program will cost about $5,000 to $7,000 per year, most of it for printing. He compared that expense to an existing beautification project.
“It is not an expensive program. I estimate this will only cost about $5,000 to $7,000 a year, that is the cost of flowers on 1st Street every summer,” Hoffman said. “I think that money is well spent and I think investing in our kids is the right thing to do.”
Hoffman said community reaction so far has been positive, particularly among residents worried about youth access to marijuana.
“Everyone has had a positive response and is appreciating that something is being done,” Hoffman said. “We all know that there is too much marijuana in Menominee and not unlike alcohol, marijuana tends to filter down to our high schoolers, our middle schoolers and yes, even our elementary schoolers. We need to more safely label these products so that our kids do not consume them accidentally.”
While he continues to lobby for city funding and broader prevention efforts, Hoffman said the labels are meant as a simple, practical step families can take right now.
He encourages residents to ask their local dispensaries, law enforcement agencies or the mayor’s office for free stickers once they become available.
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Jim Paul can be reached at jpaul@eagleherald.com.
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