I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty incredible that we’re living in the post-prohibition era of cannabis.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that cannabis will become legal in Canada on October 17th, 2018. Maybe the most exciting thing about legalization is the resources freely flowing into the market right now. As a result, growers and producers are able to up the ante on government-sanctioned manufacturing of strain variety and methods of ingestion to target specific pain-points for users in a completely revolutionary way. Cannabis oil is even being lauded for its medicinal benefits, such as having been shown to reduce seizures in children.
Think about it: our children may never have to stand in a tight circle behind their high school smoking a sketchy joint found in their older brother’s room. Or at least they’ll have a lot more information about the contents of the bud in the joint they’re smoking. According to Lift and Co, 49% of cannabis consumers don’t have any information about the cannabis they’re consuming. That being said, information such as the exact strain and ratio of CBD to THC your products contain, and the resulting effects that has on your body and brain, is becoming available in a way that it never has before. There are even full fledged “budtenders” that exist now (also known as the sommeliers of the cannabis industry), who are armed with a multitude of information about what you should smoke to achieve a specific type of high. Leading up to legalization, there are a ton of resources out there to help educate the general public on all of the options available to them.
Take Lift and Co’s cannabis concierge, for instance, which Lift CMO Kerri-Lynn McAllister calls “the TripAdvisor of the weed industry.” It’s essentially an app that helps everyone from first-timers to experts find new products or a specific effect. Users enter basic demographic information, their comfort level with cannabis, and the desired effects, and will be returned a personalized search result of weed options powered by more than 60,000 product reviews collected from Lift’s one million users. Though currently only accessible by cannabis retailers, Cannabis Concierge will be available for users to download this coming fall ahead of legalization.
Information is power, and with more available, undoubtedly many of us who currently consume cannabis will most likely change our habits going forward while those who’ve never smoked before might feel more comfortable knowing their bud is coming from a safe place. You may have seen a proliferation of products popping up that you’re excited to try, but hold up: a big surprise to many people is that not all cannabis products will become legal on October 17th.
Dried bud, cannabis oil, gel caps, and rolled joints will be legal October 17th.
Edibles like brownies, gummies, and even weed vapes won’t be legal yet, potentially taking up to 18 months after the first wave of legalization.
The more you know.