SQDC now selling cannabis vape products

Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) announced they will begin offering cannabis vaping products on its shelves starting Wednesday.

A year ago, the SQDC announced its intention to enter the vaping products market in order to “better fulfill its mission of protecting public health by offering lower-risk products.”

Cannabis vaping products have been legal in the country since 2019. In Quebec, products, including those with added flavours, and products with a THC level above 30 per cent remain prohibited.

The SQDC acknowledges that vaping presents health risks, but believes that “the lack of a legal option to date constitutes an even higher risk due to the dangerous nature of the products available on the illegal market.”

Genevieve Giroux, the Vice-President of Responsible Merchandising and Supply Chain, said, “Right now, the only way that people can consume vaping products in Quebec are illegal from the black market. So in those products, you can find chemical products, you can find some nickels in it. So very harsh products out of the health and also the THC level are very, very high. So that’s why the SQDC wanted to provide and commercialize those kinds of the vaping product to make sure that we can have a safer product on the shelf for those kinds of consumers who are making the choice to vape.”

Adding, “In the past few years, we have looked at the data and see that this consumption method, is not a consumption method that will pass. People are more and more interested in that kind of method. So for us, it was the decision between making sure that we’re capturing the black market consumers and bringing them to illicit market and making sure also that we can provide a safer product for consumers.”

The SQDC assures that its products will comply with all legal obligations and will be analyzed by laboratories certified by Health Canada, unlike those circulating on the illegal market.

“To me, it’s kind of funny, you know, because they want to sell those vaping products in this QDC in order to protect the people from the black market while they’re pushing the vapers to the black market, you know. So to me, it’s a nonsense. I find it like kind of weird. The government wants to protect the people from the black market with cannabis vaping product. But it’s pushing the regular vapor to the black market so they can have their product. What’s the sense in that?” said Valerie Gallant, a spokesperson for the coalition of vapour’s rights in Quebec.

Gallant noted that regulations that are there for the regular vaping products are still in place.

“Yeah, kind of, you know, it’s both. It’s the government that made both decisions because SQDC is owned by the government and, you know, it’s them that make all the decisions. And why do they make two different, totally different decisions on the same product? But one is to protect people from the black market and the other one, well, it pushes the people to the black market, but Why? What’s the sense in that? Are we trying to protect people from black market or are we pushing people to black market? We need to choose, you know,” said Gallant.

Gallant believes that the government should make the same changes for regular vaping products. Saying more needs to be done.

“Well, it’s not about competition because regular vape shops don’t sell cannabis products, you know? It’s the fact that they killed the flavor in all vaping products under the pretense of protecting the youth from the black market. That’s not happening because we’ve seen that youth has been vaping more since they put the flavor ban on vaping product. So are they learning from their previous mistake?”

Adding, “Is that why they are now selling cannabis vaping products? Because they saw what they did with the vaping product, with the flavor ban that the youth vapes more now? I don’t know. I really don’t understand how they did that. I’ve been saying they just need to look at all of that and make a whole new law about vaping.”

Two vaping batteries, compatible with approximately 21-gram cartridges, will be sold. The SQDC will work with 14 cartridge suppliers, nine of which are headquartered in Quebec.

SQDC staff received “comprehensive four and a half hours of training to be able to guide customers towards responsible consumption.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews