WHAT’S NEXT IN CANNABIS?
Edibles, vapes and drinks, oh my!
Canadians will soon be able to take a puff from a cannabis vape pen, sip a drink whose intoxicating kick comes from THC or nibble a pot-infused chocolate.
One year after Canada legalized recreational marijuana, a second wave of products is about to be approved that can be vaped, eaten or slathered on your skin.
Regulations governing a huge array of new cannabis products go into effect today. But companies must give 60 days’ notice to Health Canada about new products, so nothing will be on sale until mid-December at the earliest.
We checked with major cannabis companies to get an idea of what products they plan to sell first.
Expect many varieties of vape pens. And some drinks, chocolates, candy and perhaps cookies.
The approval of cannabis vape pens comes in the midst of an outbreak of lung ailments and deaths in the U.S. associated with vaping. Cannabis company executives and Health Canada say the cannabis vape oil that will be sold here must meet nationwide health and safety regulations. Many of those who fell ill in the U.S. were vaping contaminated black-market cannabis oil.
Products in three new categories — edibles, concentrates like the oil in vape pens, and topicals like lotions — will appear gradually in stores, says Health Canada. More than 40 cannabis companies have notified Health Canada they intend to make products under the new regulations.
Health Canada officials will review each product and package for compliance with hundreds of regulations meant to ensure they are safe, contain a controlled amount of THC and don’t promote the use of pot.
The plain-ish packages are plastered with health warnings, just like the containers used for the dried weed and cannabis oils that became legal a year ago.
Expect cannabis candy to look more like a cough drop than a gummy bear. Companies can’t sell anything that might appeal to children.
Here’s an idea of what to expect:
VAPE PENS
AND CARTRIDGES
Major companies plan to have vape pens on sale as soon as they are approved.
Expect a variety of devices: disposable pens that are thrown away or recycled after the oil is vaped; cartridges filled with oil that are used with rechargeable batteries; and oil “pods” for devices that are similar to the popular Juul e-cigarettes.
Cannabis executives look at trends in U.S. states that have legalized marijuana. Vape pens containing cannabis concentrates have grown steadily in popularity
Aphria Inc., one of Canada’s largest cannabis companies, is betting heavily on the popularity of vaping. Company officials offered this prediction Tuesday during a conference call with investors: They expect vape pens to capture 20 to 30 per cent of the Canadian cannabis market, dried flower 60 per cent and other categories like edibles and topicals the remainder.
The company is focused on rolling out vape products under its brands Solei, Good Supply and RIFF.
While products will be ready in mid-December, Aphria official Tamara Macgregor said she doesn’t expect they will be on sale until early in 2020. Wholesalers such as the Ontario Cannabis Store aren’t expected to start placing their orders until after the 60-day notice period is over, and it will probably take a few weeks to list, stock and ship the new products, she said.
Aphria also has a deal with U.S. company dosist, which sells disposable vape pens popular in California, to make the product here.
The Juul of cannabis vape pens will also be among the new products arriving on shelves.
Four Canadian cannabis companies — Aphria, Aurora Cannabis Inc., Organigram Holdings Inc. and Supreme Cannabis Co. — have a deal with Pax Labs Inc., the company that makes the Pax Era, a device that uses pods similar to those found in Juul e-cigarettes. (Pax Labs founded Juul, which is now a separate company.)
New Brunswick-based Organigram, for instance, will manufacture cannabis oil pods for Pax under its Edison brand.
Organigram also has a deal with disposable pen company Feather to produce Edison-branded pens, and will sell cannabis oil cartridges under its Trailblazer brand.
Aurora Cannabis will unveil a wide array of vaping products, including disposable pens branded Aurora and San Rafael ’71.
A spokesperson for Canopy Growth Corp. says the company has developed its own state-ofthe-art vaping hardware. It also plans a full vape line, but products and brands will be revealed later.
CANNABIS DRINKS
Canopy is the big player when it comes to cannabis drinks. The huge U.S. beverage company Constellation Brands, maker of Corona beer, invested $5 billion in Canopy to jointly create cannabis drinks.
They are being bottled in a plant at the company headquarters in Smiths Falls.
Some drinks will be sparkling, others flat. Most will have virtually no calories. “More than 10” drinks will be released initially, with more later in the year, said Jordan Sinclair, the company’s vice-president of communications. Some will carry the company’s familiar brand names that might include Tweed and Tokyo Smoke, but new brands will also be introduced.
That’s all he’s saying for now. The company doesn’t want to tip off competitors and plans its own promotion to introduce the drinks later this month.
Sinclair says Canopy has developed the technology to surmount one of the major drawbacks of edible cannabis products: It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours for the intoxicating effects to kick in.
That’s obviously not ideal for social occasions when people are used to having a drink. Sinclair sees a day in the future when people will go to a bar and order a cannabis drink, or have one with dinner at a restaurant. No one wants to start feeling tipsy hours later.
Sinclair says the Canopy drinks will be “rapid onset,” a goal that is also being chased by other cannabis companies.
Organigram, for instance, says it will sell a tasteless, odourless cannabis drink powder that can be dissolved in water or another liquid that takes effect in 10 to 15 minutes. The powder will be available in the first half of 2020, says Ray Gracewood, the company’s senior vice-president of marketing and communications. Organigram is also planning a line of cannabis chocolates, both truffles and bars, that will roll out around the same time, he said.
Gatineau’s Hexo Corp. is also betting big on drinks, and has a joint partnership with Molson Coors Canada to develop them under the brand Truss. Earlier this year Hexo said Truss drinks would be available as soon as regulations allowed, but spokespeople for Truss declined to comment before disseminating its news release on Thursday.
CHOCOLATES AND OTHER SWEETS
The former Hershey chocolate factory that now houses Canopy Growth’s Tweed facility in Smiths Falls will be producing sweets again, but this time they will be infused with cannabis.
Canopy’s chocolates produced with partner Hummingbird Chocolate, an award-winning chocolatier based in Almonte, will be ready for sale as soon as Health Canada gives the go-ahead, says Sinclair. The production lines are ready.
Sinclair said the company is counting on standing out from what could become a crowded field of cannabis sweets with a high-quality chocolate.
Aurora Cannabis plans to roll out mints, gummy candies and baked goods in the first wave of products, said chief corporate officer Cam Battley. He declined to list the baked goods, but said cookies “are a pretty good assumption.”
Companies are responsible for making sure cannabis confections don’t appeal to children, a requirement that Health Canada says restricts the use of “bright colours, references to a cartoon character, certain flavours, or candy-shaped products.”
Health Canada officials also say they are concerned about people accidentally eating too much, since intoxicating effects are delayed.
That’s the reason behind requirements that individually packaged candies, cookies and other treats can contain a maximum of 10 mg of THC.
In American states, that is generally considered a serving size, although Health Canada warns that cannabis affects everyone differently, and 10 mg may be too much for new users.
They suggest starting with a product containing 2.5 mg or less, and waiting until effects are felt before eating or drinking more.
As safety experts worry that cannabis edibles will summon a new wave of users, the federal government has no requirement for commercial drivers — truckers, bus drivers, cabbies, chauffeurs, couriers and rideshare operators — to undergo drug testing while working.
Cannabis edibles, extracts, topicals and vaping products become legal on Oct. 17, which may not only raise the number of users, but also make cannabis impairment more difficult to detect on the roads. The new products can deliver a different high that takes longer to kick in, which could leave drivers unexpectedly impaired.
“Everyone is holding their breath on the edibles ... is this where the jump will occur? A lot of folks have that thought ... there are concerns in that we’re moving into that new territory,” said Graham Miner, director of Prince Edward Island’s highway safety division with the Ministry of Transportation, noting he hasn’t seen a spike in cannabis use on the island.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance is calling for Ottawa to step in and mandate drug testing for commercial drivers. Canada had 1.1 million commercial drivers working in 2018, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey.
“This is all about safety, we feel very strongly that operating a commercial vehicle on roadways comes with added responsibility,” said Jonathan Blackham, the alliance’s director of policy and public affairs.
“With that, things like comprehensive drug and alcohol testing goes hand-inhand.”
“Federally regulated employers do not tolerate impairment on the job, and that has not changed since cannabis was legalized,” Jordan Crosby, an issues manager with the Ministry of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction wrote in an e-mail when asked about the lack of drug-testing laws.
“Employees have a duty to work safely. Those who are not fit to do so may pose serious health and safety risks to themselves, their co-workers and the general public.”
Canada has no mandatory drug testing in place because it could infringe on a worker’s right to privacy. With no laws governing drug tests for commercial drivers, it becomes the employer’s responsibility.
Harrison Jordan, a cannabis lawyer based in Toronto, says it’s a difficult zone for employers to navigate because the court battles are “all over the place.”
“The balancing act is if the potential safety benefits outweigh potential intrusion to employee privacy,” he said. Workplaces that want to include random or pre-employment drug tests have to show evidence of a problem with substance abuse.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration south of the border requires commercial drivers to undergo pre-employment, random and post-incident drug testing.
But a recent report from America’s Alliance for Driver Safety & Security estimated 310,000 impaired truck drivers could be on the U.S. roads — having high enough drug levels to fail a hair test.
“Any occupation that requires the person to operate equipment that directly interacts with the public and their safety should require at a minimum that those workers are well rested, well trained and drug free. Anything less flirts with accidents, injuries and fatalities,” said Lane Kidd, managing director of the Alliance for Driver Safety and Security in the U.S.