The federal government has provided a response to a petition tabled earlier this year calling on an increase of the THC limit for edibles from 10mg to 100mg. 

The petition was launched in November 2023 and sponsored by Liberal MP for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Patrick Weiler. 

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Ya’ara Saks, posted a response to the petition on July 17, noting that the 10 mg THC limit was established to protect public health and safety and was supported by the recent Expert Panel report on the Cannabis Act. 

“The limit draws heavily on lessons learned from, and the limits established by U.S. states that have legalized cannabis,” says the response, in part. 

“Health Canada is currently carefully reviewing and analyzing the report and its recommendations,” it continues. “The Panel’s findings will help inform Health Canada’s ongoing efforts to improve the operation and administration of Canada’s cannabis control framework.

Health Canada recently proposed many changes for federal cannabis regulations, which did include a proposal to remove the cumulative 10 mg THC limit for an outermost container of edible cannabis product to allow greater flexibility in packing multiple immediate containers, as long as the immediate containers do not have more than 10 mg of THC each.

Many in the industry, though, have noted that unless there is an allowance for less onerous immediate packaging on those edibles, the change likely won’t result in any cost savings for producers or consumers.

The original petition noted that both the Canada Competition Bureau and the Ontario Cannabis Store have called upon Health Canada to increase THC limits. The industry has argued for years now that the 10mg THC limit on edibles hamstrings its ability to directly compete with the illicit market, with consumers being enticed by higher THC products at a much lower cost. 

While other categories of cannabis products like dried flower, concentrates, and vapes have become increasingly competitive with the illicit market in terms of price, edibles remain one of the biggest advantages available to the illicit market. 

In an interview with StratCann in 2022, Christina Clarke, the CEO of the Songhees Development Corporation, which operates a provincially-licensed cannabis retail store on Vancouver Island, said she knows that edibles remain one of the main drivers of demand in the illicit market. 

Although legal products in nearly every other cannabis product category are competitive with the illicit market in terms of price, quality, and variety, edibles lag behind. 

“If people are going to go to the black market because the product they want is not in the regular market, then if it’s a product that’s safe we should be able to sell that in the legal market and not leave it as a product (only in) the black market.”

“The reality is, anybody who’s an edibles user knows, those doses are really quite low for somebody, especially if you’re a regular user of edibles. Your tolerance is such that some of these (edibles) barely do anything. I’m waiting for the market to catch up with what the customer wants.”

Jennawae McLean, co-owner of Calyx + Trichomes Cannabis and the Executive Director of Norml Canada, says she agrees with the idea of opening up the limit to at least allow producers to sell more than 10mg per package, even if the potency on individual servings stays the same. 

“(Ten)mg is fine for a suggested serving, but edibles should not be 10mg per pack,” McLean tells StratCann.

“In other regulated markets, the limit per package is not as restrictive as it is in Canada. A couple of weeks ago I was in Las Vegas and was able to get edibles that had many 10mg portions per bar or box.

“Customers mostly get confused about the price per mg (which seems expensive) and the quantity limit,” continues McLean. “Unregulated edibles seem half the price for 10x the potency.”

Canada’s 10mg potency limit was in part informed by feedback from states like Colorado and Washington that legalized cannabis for non-medical purposes several years prior to Canada. When these states initially legalized they had very few restrictions on edibles potencies and saw a lot of problems with people consuming too much, increasing emergency room visits and other health and safety concerns. 

These states have since imposed more strict standards, with some only allowing 10mg or even 5mg of THC per serving, but still allowing much more THC to be in a package. Colorado, for example, has had a 10mg per serving limit in place now for several years but allows up to 100mg per package. 

“Now is the time to review this area,” adds Beena Goldenberg, CEO of Organigram. “Maybe it was fine at first, the idea of starting slow, but we can now see that after three years, we are unintentionally keeping the illicit market active in this area because we are not providing equivalent legal options to consumers.

“If you could do a 100mg package and you could have ten 10mg pieces in it, isn’t that better?”

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