Canada to widen its newly opened retail cannabis market

In Ottawa, Ian Culbert, executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, says he is pleased with the government's new regulatory proposals. “Ideally, we would like to see gummy bears not containing THC”, he says, “but that's not going to happen. I can already hear the manufacturers saying ‘you are forcing us to market these products in unappealing ways, and we are saying, yes, that is right’.”

Like Rehm, Culbert warns that there is a lack of fundamental understanding of the brain impacts of edible cannabis products. And, although he welcomes Health Canada's statement on the need for greater health promotion efforts to educate the public on cannabis-related risks, he warns that so far, Canada's federal and provincial governments are not doing enough. “Now is the time to do it”, Culbert says.