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Illegal cannabis edibles still causing confusion · Kvetch & Release

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  I was scrolling through Twitter today x whatever it is that we have to call
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  it, and I came across a tweet that I found to be pretty interesting.
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  It was a quote tweet and what it was quote tweeting was a post
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  that was put out by the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction to picture
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  and there is a pill bottle on one side of this of the image that
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  says you keep this away from kids. On the other side is a picture
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  of a gummy bear with a THCHC warning label that kind of which you would
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  see on cannabis packaging in the country, and it says why treat edibles differently?
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  Again suggesting why would you not keep away your cannabis edibles that look like
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  gummy bears from kids. This is all incredibly interesting because that gummy bear would
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  be illegal in Canada to sell it through any of our illegal cannabis stores through
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  the provincial wholesalers. Joining me right now to discuss is the international editor for
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  MJ Bisiness Daily, Matt Lamers. Hey, Matt, this is not great
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  that the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction are putting out something that's so
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  misleading. Yeah, well, thanks for having me John, I appreciate it.
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  First of all, you know their message is correct. You know,
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  if you have cannabis edibles at home, whether they're illegal or legal, you
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  got to keep them out of the reach of children because they can't tell the
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  difference their kids. Right, So the message is right, keep your keep
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  your cannabis dash out of the reach of people who aren't old enough to consume
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  it, young people, people who are under under eighteen. But their mistake
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  was using a picture of an edible like you said, that's illegal to buy
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  and that has multiple problems. First of all, you know this is this
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  this isn't a business concern, this is kind of a public health concern,
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  right, So the risk profile for illegal cannabis edibles is significantly higher than legal
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  edibles because illegal ones can be up to two hundred times stronger than legal ones.
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  In the legal market, you'll get a package of cannabis edibles that can't
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  be more than ten milligrams of THHC. In illegal market, I've seen packages
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  that have two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, or even five thousand
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  milligrams of THHC in one package. So substantially it's really really dangerous. A
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  child consumes that and they're in big trouble. Right, So their message is
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  right, if you have cannabis, you have to keep it out of the
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  research children. But one of the main problems I see here is that people
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  still don't They still can't tell the difference between an illegal edible and illegal edible.
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  And I think, in my opinion, five years after legalization, this
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  is something that should be very easy for people to figure out, especially public
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  health experts, especially journalists people like that, should be able to identify illegal
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  versus legal cannabis products because it's actually very easy. Well, and you know,
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  I don't think that any government, quite frankly, that would get elected
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  is going to go in reverse cannabis legalization of this point. There's too much
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  money that's been invested into it, there's too many players, and you know,
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  going backwards doesn't make any sense here. But this kind of a post
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  that's put out here by again, you know, a very credible organization that
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  is regularly quoted throughout the media, that is a you know, a public
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  health organization, Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction. The issue here is
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  that this does in a way undermine legalization because people are going to walk away
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  seeing this if they're already you know, underinformed on this issue, becoming misinformed
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  on this issue and thinking, wow, you know what, maybe they did
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  screw up when they were legalizing cannabis. How come they did make it so
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  it was so appealing to kids, right? And I think you even see
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  that reflected in a lot of incorrect reporting that you see in Canada with regards
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  to cannabis edibles. A lot of the reporting in mainstream media doesn't identify illegal
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  cannabis edibles in the reporting, and and they kind of framed the debate around
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  has Canada made a mistake with legalizing cannabis edibles or or they or they frame
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  the article around is the government enforcing the rules of on legal businesses that produce
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  edibles? Or or they frame the article around are the regulation strong enough on
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  legal cannabis edibles? But that's not really the issue, is it. When
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  you're talking about legal versus illegal, you have to be like to be able
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  to identify in illegal products. U. There's a there's a Canadian press story
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  over the weekend. It was like eight hundred words long. It was about
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  some children out east who unfortunately ingested a large a large portion of PhD edibles
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  and they add a picture of the product, and it's clearly an illegal product,
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  but it wasn't identified as such in the story. And I'm just afraid
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  that people come into what regular people who read the story will exit that story
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  and think that, oh, Cannada shouldn't have legalized cannabis edibles. Maybe that's
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  the case, maybe it's not the case. I'm not here to debate that,
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  but I just think that from a public health perspective, people need to
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  be able to identify an illegal cannabis edible because they can be two hundred times
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  stronger than legal ones. So it's really really important that public health communications get
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  that straight. Yeah, and of course you know the fact as well that
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  you can't buy a product that looks like a gummy bear. It can't be
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  marketed or appealing to children whatsoever. And if you haven't bought cannabis edibles,
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  Matt, why don't you explain to people briefly right now the packaging that they
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  do come in, because it's a lot more akin to cigarettes than it is
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  to a bottle of alcohol. Yeah, right, So well, okay,
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  first with illegal and so if you see a cannabis product and it has a
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  colorful, flashy packaging with a gummy with a bearon it, or an athlete,
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  or with or or kind of with really exciting looking fonts, it's definitely
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  illegal. Legal products have to be in plane packaging with very simple fonts,
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  and they can't depict animals or people in the names or in the products.
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  So that's your main clue, and the most important one is the milligram,
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  the THHC limit ten milligram THHC limit. Legal products can't have more than ten
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  milligrams of THC per package. Obviously, in the illegal market, they don't
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  have any rules because it's illegal. So, like I said, you're you're
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  talking like very commonly one thousand and two thousand milligrams of THC per package in
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  the illegal market. You know, I'm such a lightweight when it comes to
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  edibles. I couldn't imagine a five hundred milligram dose. I can't even imagine
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  one hundred milligram dose right now. Well, yeah, imagine a child's consuming
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  that. That's why it's important that educators and journalists get this right. And
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  they've been getting it wrong for five years in a row, and at some
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  point this has to be this has to be kind of a national issue because
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  we've seen misreports reading on this from mainstream media so often in the last five
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  years that it's no wonder that regular people can't figure it out. Yeah,
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  it's not surprising. Hey, Matt, I really appreciate your time on this
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  one. Thank you so much, and we'll keep an eye on the industry
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  as it continues to evolve. As you said, I mean, we're five
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  years into this experiment here, there's really no excuse for this. Yeah,
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  thanks for having me, John, Thank you so much. Cheers. Matt
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  Lamers is the international editor of Mjbiz Daily, which covers the cannabis industry.