It’s going to be a busy season for the RIDE program.

Police in Ontario are ramping up Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere checks as the holiday season approaches and drivers get a little too joyful behind the wheel of their cars. Officers in search of drivers under the influence of alcohol or cannabis said the infractions came fast and furious after they set up near Peterborough on Tuesday.

“Three drivers were charged with having cannabis readily available within 45 minutes of that RIDE check starting,” Const. Joe Ayotte with the Peterborough County OPP, told Global News.

Playing the role of sativa Santa this year would have been a merry prospect, said Calgary candy-maker Brad Churchill.

But federal regulator Health Canada’s meticulously measured approach in approving production of licensed cannabis snacks and other derivatives has put those edible elves on hold.

“It’s disappointing in the standpoint of not having it in the stores for the holiday season,” said Churchill, owner of Choklat.

“(Federal approvals are) taking longer than it really should but, at the end of the day, the wheels of progress are grinding.”

In one way, the gradual rollout of the next generating of legal cannabis products — which were officially legalized Oct. 17 — comes as a relief, said Churchill.

Officers and government officials will be on high alert when Cannabis 2.0 products roll out across most of Canada in mid-December — especially on the roads.

Conventional, smoked cannabis is easier to detect due to the smoke and smell. But edibles take longer to kick in and don’t have the odour rolled joints provide.

Cannabis consumers travelling over the holidays will be pleased to know that the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has now relaxed its regulations regarding travelling with medical marijuana.

The first part of an old stoner tale goes something like this: At a certain point, after habitually using marijuana so many consecutive days, you lose the ability to dream. Your head hits the pillow, and your mind becomes a blank canvas until you rise the next morning.

The second part, meanwhile, regards what happens should you stop smoking weed. Instead of another night of silky blackness, your sleep will roar with vivid color, indescribable scenarios, and intense eruptions of dreamscape. It will be like all the dreams you didn’t have while smoking come rushing back all at once in operatic phantasms.

Canadian Cannabis 2.0 is here! It’s been over a year since recreational cannabis was legalized for adult use in Canada, and with the edibles, extracts and topicals category recently legalized, the market is shifting into what many envision as a new wave of consumption. How will the introduction of these new products impact the market?

Let’s start with Cannabis 1.0.

Cannabis edibles are legal in Quebec starting Dec. 5, but people won’t be able to get their hands on them until Jan 1.

The delay will come despite no penalties from the province’s pot regulator, Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC), if anyone does sell products starting Dec. 5.

“Edibles are not a race,” SQDC spokesperson Fabrice Giguère told the Montreal Gazette.

A new study suggests that two-thirds of Canada’s cannabis consumption can be attributed to the top 10 percent of the country’s users.

The multi-institutional study looked at data from Statistics Canada’s 2018 National Cannabis Survey and found that males between the ages of 15 and 34 were “disproportionately represented” in this group of heavy users.

Not quite a shocker, but researchers confirmed suspicions that usage patterns for the drug would resemble those seen for alcohol.