Everyone who’s ever gotten into edibles has a story about their first time.

Mine takes place in Winnipeg. I’d finished off a journalism school internship for an arts and culture magazine where during the course of executing my duties I’d made the acquaintance of a young baker who worked for a vegan restaurant in the exchange district. He’d casually dropped that he makes a little extra money on the side baking “special” brownies, and I casually dropped that I might be interested in procuring said brownies for a private celebration.

So after my last story was complete and I’d been given the final sendoff by the editorial crew, I visited my friend, paid the $35 plate fee, and took home a plate full of cannabis brownies. His final words to me as I was preparing to leave was to eat only half a brownie. Only half. No more. Anything else, he assured me, and I would go deep enough to meet the devil.

Later that night, my partner and I were having a private little celebration. She’d ground up a pile of weed that would not have looked out of place on the set of Scarface, and I’d eaten, oh, one or two brownies. Then a half hour later since nothing had happened I figured that my constitution had absorbed all of the goodness, so I ate half the plate.

I’m sure you can figure out where this is going.

The good news is the devil isn’t that bad of a guy. He’s misunderstood and kinda charming.

Now why am I telling you all this? Because of this sobering fact—getting high is the most fun you can have in Winnipeg for most of the year—and now, thanks to Agraflora Organics (AGRA.C) manufacturing four new cannabis-infused products in their 51,500 square foot GMP Winnipeg edibles facility, everyone can have a chance to go deep.

Agraflora’s gummies will be made from pectin or gelatine, and come with THC or CBD, and be branded with Mesoamerican attributes.

• Rojo: a strawberry-flavoured, pectin-based, cannabinoid-infused gummy SKU;
• Naranja: a tangerine-flavoured, gelatine-based, cannabinoid-infused gummy SKU;
• Azul: a blue raspberry-flavoured, gelatine-based, cannabinoid-infused gummy SKU;
• Verde: a green-apple-flavoured, pectin-based, cannabinoid-infused gummy SKU.

Consumer education

Agraflora’s also introducing a national bilingual campaign to teach people how to eat and store edibles before they go on shelves in December. It’ll teach the same things my baker failed to teach me—how much to eat; how long it takes to kick in and how long it will last. It’ll also include some things he didn’t, like the dangers involved in mixing it with booze and driving while high.

The company is also going to market and distribute a patent pending THC overdose antidote called True Focus. It’s a pocket-sized spray bottle taken under the tongue, and you’ll excuse me but I can’t stop laughing because there’s no way it’s going to work.

Regardless, if you’re as curious as I am, True Focus has a nutraceutical formulation, and it’s supposed to offset the negative side effects of overeating your edibles. Health Canada has put upper limits on the amount of THC per package at 10 mg, but there’s little stopping consumers from buying four or five or fifteen gummies, and chewing them all up in one session. Most people who have some experience with edibles tend to start their day with 10 mg of THC chocolates or gummies, and cap off at 400 mg on a light day. If they want to go deep, well—skies the limit, really. There’s no spray to counteract what I call the vibration effect after THC gets cycled through the liver, turned into hydroxy metabolite, and the cenobites come.

The facility is equipped with over 30,000 square feet of production space, and a 750 square-foot pharmaceutical-grade edibles research laboratory. They’re also bringing in chocolatiers and confectioners and manufacturing equipment to work on producing their infused products for medicinal, functional and adult use.

And they are also equipping the facility with the ability to mass produce cannabinoid-infused fruit and vegetable purees, which conform to the more rigorous cannabis 2.0 regulations of the Province of Quebec.

Do yourself a favour before doing any kind of edibles, especially if it’s your first time, and read and follow the recommended dosing. You’ll thank yourself later.

—Joseph Morton