Pot edibles could be purchased in Winnipeg stores as early as Wednesday

Winnipeg — It’s being declared cannabis 2.0.

Edibles and other cannabis products not part of the first phase of legalization are now able to be sold in the country, and here in Manitoba some of these new products are likely to be on the shelves as early as Wednesday.

“We should have our first runs of some of these products in store tomorrow,” said John Arbuthnot CEO of Delta 9 Cannabis on Tuesday.

“We received shipping confirmations yesterday from two suppliers, national suppliers that are looking to air ship their products.”

“We are eagerly tracking those shipments as they are moving towards us.”

Garden Variety and Tokyo Smoke told CTV News they also expect to have cannabis 2.0 products on store shelves quickly, within a week.

With the new laws in place consumers can expect to see a variety of different products in store.

“So that includes not only the edible cannabis but also some of the vaporizing platforms, concentrates, drinkable, kind of the full slate of products that we missed on the first round of legalization on October 2018.”

“Soft chews and gummy products of varying flavours, includes chocolates, mints as well, we are seeing a large number of SKUs in the vaporizable oils category.”

It isn’t all good news for the whole country, as Alberta, Ontario and Quebec will have to wait until the new year before they start receiving edible products. Those provinces have their own distribution systems, with stricter regulations.

Edible cannabis for medicinal use

Many Canadians may use the edibles for medical purposes because it is easier than smoking.

Dr. Paul Daeninck, a medical oncologist and palliative care physician with Cancer Care Manitoba, said people should be consulting a doctor before buying edible products.

“If a person is going to be buying cannabis for medical purposes they should be under the care or supervision of a medical professional. In Manitoba that means a physician or a nurse practitioner,” said Daeninck.

He added medical professionals will provide the proper knowledge on what products would be beneficial and can also educate people on potential side effects.

“Just recently Health Canada has estimated there are about 1.1 million Canadians using some form of cannabis for medical purposes and yet on their Health Canada program where we register patients with licensed producers, the numbers are around 300,000, maybe as much as 400,000. So there’s around 800,000 Canadians that are taking it for medical purposes and yet not registered on the medical program and then because of that have not seen a medical professional,” said Daeninck. “So it begs the question, what the heck are they doing, because they could be getting themselves into trouble or they could be accessing cannabis from somewhere that isn’t a trusted source.”

 -- with files from CTV's Mcihelle Gerwing