Edible pot treats and vaporizable oils could become as popular as smoked marijuana once the drug becomes legal, a pot company executive told a business luncheon Wednesday. 

“I would say the biggest thing on a product side is you will see, certainly over time, a shift from dried flower — the actual cannabis bud — over to concentrates predominately and also edible products,” said Nick Whitehead, vice-president of market development with Aurora Cannabis.

“In Colorado and Washington (state), it started at about … 70 per cent of the market was just pure dried flower, and now in terms of revenue, it’s about 50-50 between dried flower and other products.”

Whitehead spoke to around 40 business people at the Chateau Lacombe on trends in the emerging cannabis industry, organized by the Economics Society of Northern Alberta.

The federal government plans to legalize marijuana for recreational use this summer, though major decisions about how to produce, market and sell the substance have been left to the provinces. 

In Alberta, private retailers will be in charge of bricks-and-mortar sales, though the government will run online sales. 

Around a dozen firms plan to set up cannabis production operations in the Edmonton area, with Aurora being one of the largest players.  

Whitehead said that at first, producers won’t be able to manufacture oils, edibles and other products. Health Canada has set July 2019 as the prospective date for edible marijuana sales. 

Once they are regulated, edibles and vapour products will become a growth market, Whitehead said. 

“Your new consumer at this point in time I imagine is not super keen on smoking, but they might be interested in a vaporizable oil or something like that.”  

Part of the reason for the delay is the lessons learned from cannabis legalization in Colorado and Washington state, Whitehead said. 

“They weren’t really prepared for the lack of consumer understanding of how that product impacts people,” Whitehead said, citing the example of a first-time user eating too many cannabis brownies.  

He added that caps on potency and public awareness campaigns by government and industry will minimize that risk.

“What you’re going to see is definitely a shift (toward edible products), it’s just a question of what we’re allowed to do in terms of our regulatory regime,” he said. “Certainly, we hope Health Canada will allow us to roll out a fairly competitive suite of products.”