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.

The way the body processes edibles also makes them much harder to detect in oral fluid testing.

Despite the new challenges, police aren’t worried about not detecting cannabis and aren’t amping up how they check for impairment for now.

Instead, they’re thinking about how many more people might start using the drug.

The GrowthOp series, Road Trip, revealed the RCMP trains police how to use technology that detects impairment, but doesn’t provide them to precincts, forcing local police stations to invest in the equipment.

Const. James C. Cadigan, from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, said his precinct, for one, will be without new technology as edibles and other cannabis products roll out.

“We feel it’s a whole community that comes together to battle and impact impaired driving.”

County of Brant OPP officers conducts a spot check on Cockshutt Road in Brantford on Friday November 22, 2019 as they prepare to launch their annual Festive RIDE program. Brian Thompson/Brantford Expositor/Postmedia Network

Current drug technology used by police includes a urine test, oral fluid test and blood test. All of the methods have benefits and flaws — but they are “not required to enforce impaired driving legislation.”

“The devices are not designed to give a quantitative value like alcohol ‘breathalyzers’ are,” read an email from Cpl. Megan Apostoleris from the RCMP’s national headquarters in Ottawa.

“Impaired is impaired. The use of Standardized Field Sobriety Test training and Drug Recognition Experts will continue to be the primary enforcement tools against drug-impaired drivers,” Apostoleris wrote.

Police only need to conduct a field test to charge someone with impaired driving. Refusing to do the test counts as a failure and could lead to a charge.

Under the Highway Traffic Act, novice drivers under age 22 and commercial drivers must maintain a zero-blood-drug content, while requirements for all other drivers are consistent with alcohol.

“Police officers rely on what they see and hear as well as what they smell, when investigating impaired driving offences,” Apostoleris wrote.

“How a person is driving or interacting with the police officer can also provide indicators of impairment. Regardless of how a drug is consumed there are signs of that consumption and police are trained to recognize them.”