Written from the rulebook
Every check on this page comes from a specific requirement in Health Canada's packaging and labelling rules — not from guesswork. When the rules name a number, Prooflet uses that number.
Compliance
Health Canada's packaging rules, built into every product.
Cannabis packaging in Canada follows some of the strictest rules in the world — what colour the box can be, how big your logo can be, which warnings must appear, right down to the exact shade of yellow. This page walks through those rules in plain English, and shows what Prooflet does about each one.
From rulebook to checklist.
Health Canada publishes the rules for cannabis packaging and labelling. Prooflet turns them into checks that run on your actual artwork, at actual size.
Checked on every artwork
Prooflet measures your real artwork at real-world size — the symbol in centimetres, the text in print sizes — and gives you a clear result for every check before you export.
Nothing slips through quietly
If something can't be measured with confidence, it is never quietly passed. It's flagged for a person to look at. You always see what still needs attention.
The cannabis symbol
The red THC symbol, exactly as Health Canada published it.
Any product with more than a trace of THC must show Health Canada's standardized cannabis symbol — the red stop-sign shape with the cannabis leaf and "THC". The rules say precisely which artwork file, what size, which colours, and where on the package it goes.
Only the official symbol
The rule: labels must use Health Canada's own published symbol file. Redrawn copies and lookalike symbols aren't allowed anywhere on the package.
Checked automatically
The official symbol is built into Prooflet and placed for you on every THC product. It's locked — it can't be swapped, edited, or redrawn.
Minimum size, always square
The rule: at least 1.27 cm × 1.27 cm, and if you make it bigger, it must stay perfectly square.
Checked automatically
Prooflet measures the symbol on the real package dimensions, and resizing keeps it square — it can't be stretched.
Top-left of the front panel
The rule: the symbol must appear in the upper-left quarter of the main display panel, reading the right way up.
Checked automatically
Prooflet places the symbol in the top-left quarter and verifies it's still there before every export.
White border and exact colours
The rule: a white border on all sides of the symbol, and the exact red, black, and white Health Canada specifies — no substitutes.
Checked automatically
The border is part of the locked symbol, and exports use the exact required printing inks for the red, black, and white.
Health warnings
One official warning, in both languages, bigger than your brand.
Every label carries one of Health Canada's health warnings, word for word, in English and French, inside a yellow box with a black border. And no matter how proud you are of your brand name — the warning text must be at least as large.
WARNING: The smoke from cannabis includes toxic chemicals that increase your risk of heart and lung disease. The more often you smoke, the greater the risk.
MISE EN GARDE : La fumée du cannabis renferme des produits chimiques toxiques qui augmentent votre risque de maladies cardiaques et pulmonaires. Plus vous fumez souvent, plus le risque est grand.
Health Canada / Santé CanadaWord for word, from the right list
The rule: the warning must be copied exactly from Health Canada's official list — and from the section that matches your product. Edibles have their own warnings, so do extracts, topicals, and dried cannabis.
Checked automatically
Prooflet carries the full official list — the current wording, in force since March 12, 2025 — and picks the right section based on what your product is. The text is filled in for you and locked.
The yellow box
The rule: the warning sits on a specific yellow, inside a solid black border, with required breathing room so text never touches the border.
Checked automatically
The box is pre-built with the exact yellow and border. Prooflet also checks that the box is big enough for the full bilingual message — no clipped words, ever.
Readable sizes and spacing
The rule: minimum text size, minimum space between lines, and a required gap between the English and French messages.
Checked automatically
Prooflet measures the warning at true print size — the size it will actually be on the shelf, not on a screen.
Never smaller than your brand
The rule: the warning text must be at least as large as your brand name.
Checked automatically
Prooflet compares the two on every artwork. Make the brand name bigger, and you'll know before you export.
Warnings take turns
The rule: over time, each of the applicable warnings should appear on an equal share of your packages — you can't just print your favourite one.
Checked automatically
Prooflet plans the rotation across your products and keeps the tally, so you can show the warnings were shared out evenly.
THC and CBD
Clear potency numbers, in the exact required wording.
The front of the package must state the total THC and CBD — in specific phrases that change with the type of product, formatted so they stand out. And there are hard legal limits on how much THC a package can contain at all.
The right words and units
The rule: the THC and CBD statement uses prescribed wording that depends on the product — per unit for gummies and capsules, per gram for flower, per activation for sprays.
Checked automatically
Prooflet builds the statement for you with the correct phrase and units for your product type, straight from your product details.
Easy to find, easy to read
The rule: the numbers must be bold, on a white background with clear space around them, big enough to read but never bigger than the health warning.
Checked automatically
The statement is pre-formatted to these rules, then verified on the finished artwork.
Legal potency limits
The rule: an edible package can contain at most 10 mg of THC. Extracts and topicals are capped at 1,000 mg per container, and sprays at 10 mg per activation.
Blocks export
Prooflet checks your declared values against these limits. A package over the limit doesn't get a warning — it gets stopped.
Plain packaging
Your brand, within the lines.
Cannabis packaging is "plain packaging": one uniform colour, no shine, no pictures, and tight limits on branding. You get your brand name and one logo — and the logo can't be bigger than the THC symbol.
One colour, no shine
The rule: the package is a single uniform colour. No metallic or fluorescent colours, no glitter, no embossed patterns, no textures.
Checked automatically
Prooflet checks the colours you've chosen against the banned ranges before they reach print.
Colours that don't compete
The rule: the package colour must clearly stand apart from the warning's yellow and the symbol's red, so the required elements always pop.
Checked automatically
Prooflet compares your package colour against both and flags anything too close.
One logo, symbol-sized
The rule: besides the brand name, you may show exactly one other brand element — and if it's a logo, it can't take up more space than the THC symbol.
Checked automatically
The editor keeps your logo inside the permitted size while you design — you can see the limit as you drag — and the final artwork is verified again at export.
Nothing aimed at youth
The rule: nothing that could appeal to young people — no people, characters, or animals, no lifestyle imagery, no health claims, no ties to alcohol or tobacco brands.
Flagged for your review
Clear-cut cases — like health-claim wording — are caught automatically. The judgment calls are routed to a person on your team, because "appealing to youth" is a human decision, not a measurement.
Required information
Every required detail, present and readable — in both languages.
Beyond the symbol and the warning, the label must carry a long list of details: who made the product, what's in it, when it was packaged, how to store it. Miss one and the label isn't compliant.
The full checklist
The rule: your company's contact details, the class of cannabis, the lot number, the packaging date, storage instructions, the net weight, and "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN" must all be on the label.
Checked automatically
Prooflet checks for each required item one by one, and tells you exactly which one is missing — not just "something's wrong".
English and French, everywhere
The rule: all required information appears in both official languages.
Checked automatically
Every required element is checked for both languages, not just the warning.
Readable formatting
The rule: required text has a minimum size, a plain typeface, dark-on-light contrast, and must stay smaller than the health warning.
Checked automatically
Prooflet measures the text the way a printer would — at final printed size.
Extra rules for edibles, extracts, and topicals
The rule: edibles also need an ingredient list, allergen statement, nutrition facts table, and a best-before date. Extracts and topicals have their own additions.
Checked automatically
Tell Prooflet what the product is, and the right extra checks switch on by themselves.
Print handoff
Files structured for your printer's review.
A compliant design still has to survive the printing press. Before export, Prooflet runs file-level checks and records known gaps so your prepress team can review what was generated.
Print-safe colours
Screens and presses see colour differently. Files headed to print must use printing inks, not screen colours.
Checked automatically
Every colour in the export is converted to and verified as printing ink — including the symbol's exact red.
Room for the trim
Printers need the artwork to extend slightly past the cut line ("bleed"), so no white slivers show at the edges.
Checked automatically
Bleed and trim are set up from your package's real dimensions and verified down to fractions of a millimetre.
Nothing missing at the press
Fonts must travel inside the file, and the layers must be organized so prepress teams can work with them.
Checked automatically
Exports are best-effort layered PDF artwork packages with embedded fonts and clearly named layers your prepress team can open and inspect.
An honest gap report
No software should tell you a file is perfect. Printers run their own final checks, and they should.
Reported openly
Anything Prooflet could not fully verify is listed in your export package — stated plainly, never hidden — so your printer knows exactly what to double-check.
Onboarding
The right warnings are filled in before you ever touch the artwork.
Health Canada keeps five separate warning lists, one per type of product — and the wording changes over time. Prooflet handles this during onboarding, with a few plain questions.
Tell us about the product
What it is, its format, and how it's used — smoked, eaten, swallowed, or applied to skin. No regulatory vocabulary needed.
Prooflet picks the right list
Your answers select the correct warning list automatically — the edibles warnings for a chocolate, the smoking warnings for dried flower. A product can never end up with no warning.
Both languages, word for word
The exact English and French texts are pre-filled into the yellow box — bold first sentence, Health Canada attribution, correct sizes — and locked so they can't drift.
Rotation handled
Running several products or print runs? Prooflet shares the warnings out evenly across them and keeps the record, as the rules require.
Prooflet's warning library matches Health Canada's current official list — the wording in force since March 12, 2025. Because warnings come from the library instead of being typed by hand, new artwork always starts from the current text, never from an old label. You can read the official lists yourself in English and in French.
What stays with your team.
Prooflet does the measuring. Some decisions are yours — and we think you should hear that from us plainly.
The judgment calls
Questions like "could this appeal to young people?" can't be answered by a measurement. Prooflet flags them clearly and routes them to a person on your team instead of guessing.
The final sign-off
Your product information, your regulatory decisions, and the final approval remain your responsibility. Prooflet shows its work so that sign-off is easier — it doesn't replace it.
No such thing as "pre-approved"
Health Canada doesn't pre-approve packaging — not for anyone. Any software claiming "Health Canada approved" labels would be wrong; Prooflet even blocks that wording from appearing on your artwork.
Prooflet is a compliance aid, not legal advice or regulatory sign-off. Checks are built against Health Canada's public cannabis packaging rules; final review and approval always rest with your team. Read our full disclaimers.
Read the rules yourself.
Everything on this page is based on Health Canada's public documents. We encourage you to read them — the same way we did.
- Packaging and labelling guide for cannabis products Health Canada's plain-language guide to the packaging and labelling requirements.
- Cannabis health warning messages (English) The official warning texts, exactly as they must appear — current since March 12, 2025.
- Mises en garde sur le cannabis (français) The prescribed French counterparts, paired one-to-one with the English messages.
See the checks run on your own package.
Create an account, add a product, and watch the rules on this page turn into green checkmarks — for free, before you pay anything.