It’s been three years since New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd consumed an undocumented amount of a cannabis-infused candy bar and tumbled down a psychotropic rabbit hole.

“For an hour, I felt nothing,” Dowd wrote in June 2014. “But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours.”

She was thirsty, but could not move. She was panting and paranoid.

The column launched the predictable round of mockery on social media, commentators bemused by the naiveté of the Gray Lady columnist.

But Dowd’s encounter in a Denver hotel room with a THC-laced treat was a cautionary tale, and a serviceable one at that. While Colorado had legalized the sale of recreational marijuana as of Jan. 1 of that year — a story that Dowd was reporting on — the state entered a rolling period of regulatory refinements that still has not ceased.

The mandated single-serving stamping of a universal symbol — a yield sign with the letters THC and an accompanying exclamation mark — wasn’t legislated into effect until October 2016, at the same time as the state determined that all edibles be “physically demarked in a way that enables a reasonable person to intuitively determine how much of the product constitutes a single serving of active THC.” Each serving is to contain no more than 10 mg of the buzzy stuff. Packaging must be opaque, hard to open for children under the age of 5 and resealable.

As of next October marijuana edibles shaped like people, animals or fruit will be prohibited, meaning that it took years for the state to take a stand on pot-infused gummy bears. More changes are bound to occur as pot companies continue down the path of product innovation.

Colorado’s learning curve could be the most useful test case for the Canadian government as Ottawa moves from broad legalization of dried and fresh cannabis, seeds and oil — targeted for July of 2018 — to edibles, the time line for which has not been set. “Designing an appropriate regulatory system for cannabis edibles is a complex undertaking and there are unique potential health risks and harms that need to be carefully understood before the development and coming into force of these regulations,” the government said after tabling the Cannabis Act in mid-April. “For this reason, the Government of Canada will need to take an appropriate amount of time to develop, and implement regulations that will result in safe edible products eventually coming to market.” Standardized serving sizes and child-resistant packaging both earned a mention.

What’s at stake is a fast-growing consumer products industry that can spur domestic job creation and seed international expansion.

That’s certainly the way Tripp Keber sees it. The Denver-based chief executive officer of Dixie Brands has been meeting with licensed cannabis producers in Canada — he won’t say which — moving toward a joint venture that would see Dixie establish manufacturing operations in Canada for branded products sold here and abroad.

The Dixie product lineup includes mints, chocolates, topicals and elixirs, like sparkling berry lemonade. The company currently manufactures in four states, with a plan to move to at least six by year end.

Keber has embraced the Colorado guidelines throughout Dixie’s operations. There have been sacrifices. The popular Dixie Roll — think Tootsie Roll with a buzz — didn’t survive the introduction of the mandated THC stamping. “We couldn’t find the methodology to apply the edible ink to these rolls and allow it to be read,” he says. “Ultimately that product got sacked.”

The upside is an eye popping corporate trajectory. “In 2014, on any given day, Dixie had over a half-million dollar backlog,” Keber says. “We just could not manufacture enough. Three plus years later, we are no longer a commercial kitchen. We’re really an industrial manufacturing facility.” He will not share revenue figures.

Data from Arcview Market Research provides some hard number insights. In the first quarter of 2014, more than 70 per cent of Colorado cannabis sales came from flower sales. That dropped to 56 per cent by the third quarter of last year. Sales of edibles in the state grew to $190 million (U.S.) in 2016, a 50-per-cent increase from the previous year. Arcview now includes Canada in its North American forecasts, projecting legal cannabis sales to reach $21.6 billion in 2021 from $6.9 billion today.

And here’s the benefit to the public purse: Colorado’s Department of Revenue reports that all marijuana taxes, licences and fees totalled $22.9 million in April of this year, versus $13.1 million in April 2016. (The first $40 million collected in marijuana retail taxes will be transferred to public school capital construction.)

For entrepreneurs like Keber, there’s a catch. U.S. regulations are evolving state by state but do not allow for interstate commerce. (Marijuana is illegal under federal U.S. law.) Nor can he export internationally his product line, from Dixie’s bath soak — “it provides more of a body buzz and is designed to alleviate stress and anxiety” — to its cinnamon synergy dew drops.

“Canada represents a massive opportunity,” he says, not only in marketing to Canadian consumers, but in establishing a manufacturing distribution platform here to connect to international markets. “Now I don’t have to go build a facility in Colombia or Mexico or Uruguay. I can build one in Canada and ostensibly through federal treaties serve those consumers and/or patients.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“Ostensibly” is the operative word, but Keber is convinced that the evolution of the Canadian market is inevitable. “We believe unequivocally, or as I like to say, with delusional confidence, that your government understands the importance of including infused products. At the end of the day, a widget, whether it be an elixir or a pain relief lotion or a tincture, it is far easier to track, tax and regulate that product when it’s in a form similar to that of any consumer packaged goods company.”

It’s hard to get one’s head around that, seeing a pot producer as just another cookie or pop company. The thought might even rouse a bit of anxiety. Dixie Brands has the remedy for that: a relaxing mint with just a hint of THC. If Tripp Keber has his way, coming soon to a dispensary near you.

jenwells@thestar.ca