MONTREAL — For one of Canada’s largest legal cannabis companies, the vote in Parliament recently to legalize recreational marijuana represents a broad opportunity to develop new products, including marijuana-infused drinks.
The hope, said Adam Greenblatt, a manager with the company, Canopy Growth, «is that in five years’ time people will be drinking cannabis drinks at a cocktail party as if drinking a good wine.»
Matteo Rossant, 21, a business graduate at Concordia University in Montreal, also envisions an expansive future, one in which he sells maple syrup, lollipops and jelly treats made with cannabis.
But Rémi Letendre, 81, a retired Quebec radio host, worries that legal marijuana sales and consumption will leave cities like Toronto and Montreal overrun by stoned adolescents and marijuana tourists from the United States stumbling around the sidewalks.
People across Canada were grappling on June 20 with the legalization of recreational marijuana, which represents one of the most sweeping changes in Canadian culture in decades.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had argued that legalization was necessary to eliminate an illegal cannabis industry estimated to be worth as much as $7 billion a year and to protect young people from the risks of illegal drugs. The law will go into effect on October 17, Mr. Trudeau said, to give provinces time to get their retail systems running.
The Quebec Cannabis Company, the new provincial marijuana monopoly, has been examining how to sell cannabis, given restrictions that, for example, forbid glamorizing it in marketing or selling it in glass display cases behind a counter.
Mathieu Gaudreault, a spokesman for the company, said customers might be able to at least smell the marijuana, which will be sold in sealed sachets, «as if they were smelling perfume.»
Although Canada legalized medical marijuana in 2001, hundreds of black market dispensaries have proliferated.
Trees Station, an illegal pot dispensary in Toronto’s bohemian Kensington Market, has been open for two years, selling more than 30 different kinds of marijuana. Business is so good, the owners have plans to open two new sites. «We’re going to keep on doing what we’re doing,» said Nathan Murdock, the manager.
Viewing legalization as a business prospect, Mr. Rossantis starting a marijuana lifestyle magazine called Maples. He also wants to produce a variety of maple-derived, marijuana-infused products.
«For a young entrepreneur like me, the pot industry feels easier to get into than the tech sector,» he said. «Besides, we millennials have the know-how when it comes to the pot-market — we have all smoked pot.»
An opportunity for maple syrup made with cannabis.