But how about candies called “chewables”? Or tarts, tablets and mints?

They may all be similar, but the formats and names could be key to what is acceptable to federal regulators.

What confections will be allowed is one of the biggest question marks as Canada awaits regulations from Health Canada on cannabis “edibles” and concentrated products, says Chuck Rifici, an Ottawa cannabis entrepreneur.

Rifici’s Auxly Cannabis Group, like others in the industry, is preparing to produce a range of products while waiting to see what will be allowed.

The regulations will usher in Phase 2 of Canada’s legalization of recreational marijuana. Insiders speculate they may arrive this week. There will be public consultations before the final regulations are adopted.

Only dried weed and cannabis oil are now legal. The federal government has a deadline of October 2019 to regulate edible cannabis products as well as concentrates, which are used in everything from vape pens to lotions.

One has only to look at the U.S. states that have legalized pot — or the black market — to get a sense of the range of products that could contain cannabis.

Candy, cookies and chocolate. Mints with a micro-dose of THC, the chemical that creates the high, are increasingly popular. Tinctures and tea, lemonade and cola. Lotions, bath balms and patches. Vape pens, hash and shatter, a concentrated resin that is commonly heated with a small blow torch and inhaled.

Rifici says Auxly is preparing to manufacture edibles and other products at the cannabis production facility it owns in P.E.I. Auxly has a licensing deal with Dixie Brands, a Colorado company that was one of the first to develop cannabis drinks and now sells more than 100 products, from candies to bath salts.

Health Canada will probably to take a more conservative approach to regulation than some American states, where cannabis lollipops, gummies and frozen treats called “icicles” are for sale.

An indication of what to expect is contained in the Cannabis Act, which prohibits the sale of any products whose “appearance, shape or other sensory attribute or function” could appeal to young people. The Act also bans any names or marketing that might appeal to youth, refer to a person, character or animal or promote the use of pot as a desirable lifestyle.

Hence the widespread assumption that gummy bears will not be allowed. But how about candy in another shape called a “lozenge” or chewable? That remains to be seen.

Ottawa lawyer Trina Fraser, a leading adviser to the cannabis industry, says she hopes Health Canada adopts general guidelines for broad product categories. It would be difficult to regulate products individually because there are potentially so many. “The sky’s the limit,” she notes.

And even the general prohibition against products appealing to youth is tricky to interpret, she notes.

“How do you define that? Because any goody would be appealing to kids. But I think we are probably talking about visual appearance, not taste.”

She expects cannabis chocolate bars, for instance, to be allowed if the government wants to effectively compete with the black market.

“How do you make that not appealing to kids? A chocolate bar looks like a chocolate bar.

“We have to make products that taste good and that consumers actually want to buy. And some of those products, if kids actually saw them unwrapped and sitting on the counter, they would probably think they would want to eat them. So there is an inherent conflict there, and we’ve got to figure out what the right balance is between protecting kids and letting the industry supply adult consumers with the types of products they actually want.”

Packaging and labelling rules will help identify what’s a cannabis treat and keep it away from kids. The government requires dried weed and cannabis oils to be sold in child-resistant packages that are dominated by health warnings and a THC symbol.

Fraser said she expects the same rules will apply to new products, and that each serving of edible cannabis will also have to be clearly identified.

Rifici predicts that edible cannabis products won’t initially capture a large share of the market.

He pulls a small device out of his pocket. It’s a vape pen made by Feather, an American company.

Rifici is betting that vape pens, which contain concentrated cannabis oil, will be allowed, and they will be popular. All the cannabis companies are “looking at their pen strategies,” he says.

The pens come in a variety of formats. Some are disposable, others have refillable cartridges. They have advantages over smoking a joint: they emit a cloud of vapour rather than smelly smoke and aren’t as harmful to the lungs because there’s no combustion.

“I think cannabis is best inhaled,” says Rifici. The effects are immediate, and more easily controlled than with edible products.

“It’s very hard to have a bad experience with a pen.”

It’s easier to over-consume edible cannabis products. It depends on the person and the product, but edible products can take an hour or two before the buzz hits and up to six hours before it leaves.

Novice users might take a bite of a cannabis cookie, feel nothing, and keep eating, only to suffer an overdose.

The Dixie products come with an “activation time” guide that gives an estimate of how long it might take to start feeling high. The citrus blast gummy, for example, (a candy that “will have you feeling great in no time!” promises the website) has an activation time of 45 minutes, although there is also a disclaimer that intoxicating effects “may be delayed by two or more hours.”

Incredibles, an American brand known for its cannabis chocolate bars, offers this advice on its website: “Wait two hours and then enjoy.”

Companies are also developing cannabis drinks. Constellation Brands, the huge American beer, wine and liquor company, has invested $5 billion Cdn into Smiths Falls-based Canopy Growth Corp. for a joint venture to develop beverages.

Gatineau cannabis grower Hexo Corp. has a partnership with Molson Coors Canada.

But Rifici and some others in the industry say they don’t expect cannabis drinks to become mainstream until their effects more resemble alcohol.

“(Companies) are chasing this kind of Holy Grail of trying to mirror the effect of cannabis to alcohol, since that’s something we can all identify with,” says Chuck Smith, the CEO of Dixie Brands. “You have a drink, a glass of wine or a cocktail, we pretty much know what that is going to do to us and how long it’s going to take.

“People understand beverages, both consuming them and distributing them.”

Another Canadian company, Sproutly, says it has solved the problem with new technology that extracts cannabis molecules that are water-soluble. That allows the cannabis to go directly into the bloodstream, so the effects are felt more quickly and dissipate sooner, says CEO Keith Dolo.

“Who wants to drink a beverage in a social setting when they don’t know if the effects will last four, five or six hours?” he says. He says Sproutly’s invention will allow the creation of cannabis drinks that produce effects in five minutes and take less than 90 minutes to wear off, which is comparable to smoking and vaping.

Sproutly is now negotiating with beverage companies to create the drinks.

Smith says Dixie is developing something similar. However, he also injects a note of caution into the wild rush among companies to dream up cannabis products.

“At some point, normal, rational thinking will take place,” he says, and companies will realize that “every single thing we use on a daily basis doesn’t need to have cannabis in it, or CBD in it.” (CBD is the non-psychoactive component of cannabis that has pain relief and anti-inflammatory qualities.)

“I’m probably going to get grief for this, but I don’t understand why people would put cannabis say, in coffee,” he says.

“When you look at the size of the coffee market, and you wonder, what is the predominant use of coffee today? It’s generally for people who get up in the morning, they have a cup of coffee and they go to work. Is that a good thing for us to promote, that people are going to get up and have a cannabis-infused coffee and go to work? That doesn’t make sense to me.

…”I don’t think people are waking up and wanting to get high and go into work.”

Cannabis coffee may be a moot point in Canada, though. The Cannabis Act prohibits mixing cannabis with nicotine, alcohol or caffeine — unless the regulations decree otherwise.