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Added Caffeine not allowed in Canadian edibles/beverages

Thomas Davie

Thomas Davie

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One of the ules of Canadian legalization is that no Caffeine be added to a drink/edible containing Cannabis. So, mo Caffeine in that Cannabis Cola, *unless*it is from a natural source. meaning Guarana, a common component of energy drinks.

There are drinks available on OCS (Ontario government online store) containing 10 mg THC/30 mg Caffeine. Neon Rush (packaging looks like Mountain Dew) and Cali Blast, which looks like Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
Tom
 
Yeah... I heard that the mountain dew up there doesn't even contain caffeine. Unlike the U.S. where you can put caffeine in everything.
 
From a natural source... Are companies using synthetic caffeine?

So if I extract caffeine from tea leaves I can have a beverage with 69mg THC plus 420mg caffeine?
 
MedicinalUser247 said:
Yeah... I heard that the mountain dew up there doesn't even contain caffeine. Unlike the U.S. where you can put caffeine in everything.
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Nah, Mountain Dew has caffeine, but that only was allowed 10 yrs ago? We still can't buy, as far as I am aware, Minute Maid Orange soda w/caffeine.

@someguyontheinternet No, no added caffeine. Only naturally occurring caffeine such as in coffee beans or guayana seeds. I don't understand your second sentence.

Tom
 
Tea leaves are a natural source, so if I were to formulate a beverage where during manufacturing I make a highly concentrated tea where the end result is a caffeine content of say 4.2mg/mL and add 0.69mg THC per mL then the resulting drink is sold in 100mL bottles. That's a natural source, isn't it?
 
What a silly law. Natural versus synthetic when it comes to chemicals is such a tired superstition.

Too bad that law doesn't apply to alcohol too, then we could have crossfade juice. The way the laws are set up, petroleum derived alcohol is already illegal for human consumption (because if it was legal, the scale of ethanol production would pretty much bankrupt anybody who makes cheap flavored booze).
 
Thomas Davie said:
One of the ules of Canadian legalization is that no Caffeine be added to a drink/edible containing Cannabis. So, mo Caffeine in that Cannabis Cola, *unless*it is from a natural source. meaning Guarana, a common component of energy drinks.

There are drinks available on OCS (Ontario government online store) containing 10 mg THC/30 mg Caffeine. Neon Rush (packaging looks like Mountain Dew) and Cali Blast, which looks like Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
Tom
Click to expand...

So you can add caffeine, just with more steps.
 
It seems what's not forbiden has got to be allowed...

Anyone still wonders why i'm such a critic of health officials when a large Pest Control ("sanitory") Products catalog, a concept of *NON-DETECTION* and an absence of combinatorial C(n, r) restrictions are combined under the slogan « legal = safe »??

:Sherlock:
 
Thomas Davie said:
Nah, Mountain Dew has caffeine, but that only was allowed 10 yrs ago? We still can't buy, as far as I am aware, Minute Maid Orange soda w/caffeine.
Click to expand...
most if not all orange soda in the US doesn't contain caffeine. pretty sure root beer is also almost always non caffeinated, at least with all the major brands. like i don't think grape soda and a few others have caffeine in the US either..

i haven't heard of caffeine in any edibles in my state either. i know it's common for sativa gummies to have ginsing and some other stuff from energy drinks, but never seen caffeine.
 
foodcrisis said:
most if not all orange soda in the US doesn't contain caffeine. pretty sure root beer is also almost always non caffeinated, at least with all the major brands. like i don't think grape soda and a few others have caffeine in the US either..
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hmm yeah here in bc, cola has caffeine, mountain dew has caffeine, root boor sometimes has caffeine but asfaik no fluit flavoured soda does. Like I've never seen orange pop with caffeine.
 
Our laws are weird. No caffeine but stop by to get your free opioids
 
someguyontheinternet said:
Tea leaves are a natural source, so if I were to formulate a beverage where during manufacturing I make a highly concentrated tea where the end result is a caffeine content of say 4.2mg/mL and add 0.69mg THC per mL then the resulting drink is sold in 100mL bottles. That's a natural source, isn't it?
Click to expand...

There is still a limit on total caffeine allowed -

Edible cannabis must not contain or have on it caffeine unless it has been introduced through the use of ingredients that naturally contain caffeine (e.g., chocolate, tea) and the total amount of caffeine in each immediate container does not exceed 30 mg [s. 5.1 and 102.2, CR]. Note that caffeine cannot be used as a food additive [subs. 101(5)(d), CR].
Click to expand...

Guide on composition requirements for cannabis products - Canada.ca

Regulatory requirements relating to formulation, production and composition of cannabis products including edibles, extracts and topicals.
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca

I think this is to ensure that each dose comes out to no more caffeine than an ounce of dark chocolate, so that people who need a higher dose of THC don't end up incidentally consuming large amounts of caffeine.
 
Skorpio said:
What a silly law. Natural versus synthetic when it comes to chemicals is such a tired superstition.
Click to expand...

I can't help but feel like a lot of people in this thread are missing the point of this law whether or not they agree. The reason they are still allowing caffeine from natural sources most likely isn't because they think 30 mg of caffeine from tea leaves is safe but 30 mg of synthetic caffeine powder is dangerous. It's because if they banned caffeine outright then you would no longer to be able to sell things weed brownies, since chocolate naturally contains small amounts of caffeine, so they made an exception for naturally occurring caffeine (although as was pointed out above there is still a limit).

Furthermore, there are actually differences between natural sources of caffeine and synthetic. Going back to the tea example, tea contains l-theanine which balances out some of the stimulatory effects of caffeine. Again, not saying that this means 30 mg of synthetic caffeine is dangerous only pointing out that it's not necessarily a superstition to believe there are differences between natural sources and synthesized chemicals.
 
The fact that there is a limit greatly contextualizes why caffeine is allowed in edibles. This seems actually like a well written law.

I still don't think the L-theanine contribution is that significant in green tea. It occurs in green tea at around 6 mg/cup of tea, which is orders of magnitude lower than the dose one would take with caffeine (usually in the hundreds of mg range). Furthermore, as a ligand of the NMDA receptors, theanine is a weak partial agonist, with its binding affinity in the micromolar range. The concentrations reached by drinking tea are going to be in the nanomolar range, so the effects will be very mild compared to a full dose.
 
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