Mind-numbing, mind-blowing or mind-bending, take your pick, but news that 450 different cannabis products will be available when it’s legal elicits or promises all three responses, maybe more.

And that’s only for starters. So-called edibles and drinkables won’t even be on the market at first but once they are, in about a year, the mind boggles with the ingestion potential.

Cannabis is bigger business than many would have guessed, and when recreational use becomes legal sometime this year, provincial governments take over the lion’s share.

When, exactly, this sea change in the nation’s social landscape will occur has inexcusably fallen to Canada’s antediluvian Senate to determine. Some senators are having difficulty getting their heads around the reality that Canadians elected a government that openly advertised its plan to legalize pot, although “pot” is no longer an accurate or adequate label for 450-plus cannabis products about to be legally bought and consumed in Canada.

Nova Scotians who want the full choice will have to do their cannabis shopping online. The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC), which holds a provincial monopoly on the legal sale of recreational cannabis, estimates online sales will account for about 40 per cent of the total. The NSLC anticipates 3,000 online transactions daily.

The province’s 12 retail outlets will each stock about 150 products, while the NSLC’s only stand-alone cannabis store on Clyde Street in Halifax will have double that selection. Retail sales will be full service, not self-serve like liquor.

NSLC CEO Bret Mitchell assured members of the legislature’s public accounts committee Wednesday that online shopping for cannabis will be secure and confidential. That reassurance was necessitated by the provincial government’s recent spate of online security lapses.

If you’re buying, count on paying around $8.70 a gram, but Mitchell said that’s just a ballpark. Like alcohol, cannabis will come in a lower-priced value format on up to premium quality products for the more discerning consumers. Obviously, there will also be a selection of good old-fashioned ganga, plus paste, oil, vapour and cream, all in various strains and THC concentrations. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the primary psychoactive component in cannabis.

Mitchell expects the price of cannabis to moderate as the legal marketplace matures and more suppliers get into the business and scale up.

“It’s not our intention to chase the black market to the bottom (on price),” the CEO said in response to the suggestion that the NSLC will have trouble competing with the well-established illicit cannabis trade.

Taking a bite out of the illegal drug trade is one rationale for legalization, so the liquor commission knows it needs to price its product competitively against illicit dealers, but it is also counting on the assurance of quality and safety it offers to win in the marketplace over time. But no one should expect illegal sales to disappear overnight, he said.

Initially, products available in Nova Scotia will come from outside the province but within a year, local product will be in the stores. Eventually, Nova Scotian cannabis growers will produce far more than the estimated 12,000-15,000 kilograms Nova Scotians are expected to consume each year.

Health advocates were critical of the province’s decision to co-locate cannabis and alcohol sales at the NSLC, while other interests criticized the province’s initial designation of just nine retail locations, which omitted the South Shore and Valley. But this week, the province announced three additional outlets, including New Minas and Bridgewater.

As for co-location, Deputy Finance Minister Byron Rafuse said polling told the government that Nova Scotians preferred the NSLC retail model.

Nova Scotia’s 12 retail outlets will be far fewer than in New Brunswick, where 20 are planned, or Newfoundland’s 41.

The NSLC will spend $9 million renovating stores to separate cannabis and liquor, and expects annual operating costs to run between $12.5 million and $13.5 million for the cannabis business. Sales are expected to be in the $90-million range, returning more than $20 million to the province. Credit card fees alone on cannabis sales will top $1 million.

The NSLC and Finance Department officials painted a more complete picture of the legal cannabis environment than many folks have seen before, but there are a still a lot of unknowns that will only clear up once legalization is here.

It’s a work in progress, Mitchell said. The NSLC doesn’t pretend to be expert in the cannabis trade but will evolve and learn.

This entire venture is very speculative, he said, and we’re all going to discover how we need to adapt. That pretty much says it all.