EDMONTON — She's being called one smart cookie. 
 
 As people lined up to buy cannabis at one of six Edmonton cannabis stores that opened Wednesday a small entrepreneur stood ready to capitalize on what could be expected to be customers' future need for a sweet snack. 
 
 Nine-year-old Elina Childs had a wagon full of Girl Guide cookies for sale. 
 
 "My dad asked me if I wanted to sell cookies and I said yes," she said in an interview after school Thursday. "So we started selling cookies there and they sold out very quickly." 
 
 Canadian Press Nine-year-old Elina Childs poses as she sells Girl Guide Cookies outside a cannabis store in Edmonton on Wednesday. 
 
 Her father, Seann Childs, said they sold cookies going door to door in their neighbourhood last year, but people often weren't home or there would be big dogs in the yards. 
 
 "We thought, 'Where can we go to sell them?'" he said. "It just so happens that legalization was coming up in a couple of days." 
 
 When Elina got home from school Wednesday, she grabbed some change from her piggy bank. She and her dad loaded up a wagon with three cases of Girl Guide cookies and they walked a few blocks to the nearby cannabis store. 
 
 She started walking up and down the lineup. 
 
 "It was well received," said Seann Childs. 
 
 Elina said people told her "it was a smart idea and that they'd like to buy some cookies." 
 
 God bless this girl selling girl guide cookies outside of nova cannabis. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼#yegpic.twitter.com/dnI9HdBXPc — Emily Fitzpatrick (@_emilyfitzCBC) October 17, 2018 
 
 Her dad said some cars even stopped on the street to buy a box. 
 
 "It was really something else," he said. "I'd never seen anything quite like that." 
 
 Childs said he expected it to go well, but he never thought she would sell out of all the cookies they had left in the three cases — about 30 boxes — in 45 minutes. 
 
 "We were sold out in no time," he said. 
 
 WATCH: What's allowed in each province and territory. Story continues after video. 
 
 An official with the Girl Guides praised Elina's strategy. 
 
 "Good on her and her family for thinking of it," said Edmonton commissioner Heather Monahan. "It's fun and it's different and what better way to get rid of cookies." 
 
 A teaching moment 
 
 A social media post on Elina outside the pot store went viral and Monahan said they started getting questions from other parents about whether it was allowed. 
 
 "Why wouldn't it be?" she said. "It wasn't like she was in the store — that would be a whole different ball game. 
 
 "I think it's wonderful." 
 
 To make it even better, Elina's parents were able to use the experience as a teaching moment for their daughter. 
 
 "She actually has cystic fibrosis, so we encourage her to get out there and do things and be active," Childs said. "Girl Guides is one part of that." 
 
 He noted that smoking is usually harmful to her. 
 
 "This was one day she could benefit from smoking," said Childs. "We saw that as an opportunity to get out there and teach her a little about what cannabis is. 
 
 "Obviously she's not going to be using it before she's 18, I hope, but we like to have frank discussions with her, so she understands what it is and take away that mystery behind it — just to show her people of all ages and all walks of life are doing this and it's legal in Canada now, just demystify it for her so it's not a big deal for her." ||||| CTVNews.ca Staff 
 
 
 
 
 
 A nine-year-old Alberta girl managed to rapidly sell out of Girl Guide cookies by targeting cannabis consumers on the first day of legal sales. 
 
 Elina Childs tells CTV News Channel that it was her father’s idea to load up her wagon and line up outside of an Edmonton pot shop on Wednesday. 
 
 Elina, part of the Girl Guides Canada Brownies program, unloaded all 30 boxes of cookies at $5 each in about 45 minutes, according to her father, Seann Childs. 
 
 Childs says he came up with the idea a day or so before legalization. 
 
 “We were going to sell them in the neighbourhood and it’s always been a little slow,” he said. “Elina was actually bit by a dog once.” 
 
 “She did a fantastic job and was very polite and everyone was very polite with her,” he added. 
 
 Childs added that he used the experience to teach his daughter about legalization. 
 
 “We talked about ... what it was and what it means for people who want to use it and people who don’t want to use it,” he explained. 
 
 Childs said Elina has cystic fibrosis and the Brownies program has been important to keep her active. 
 
 He also said that smoking is normally harmful for her, so this was “the one day she could benefit from smoking.” 
 
 "We like to have frank discussions with her, so she understands what it is and take away that mystery behind it,” he said in a separate interview with The Canadian Press. “Just to show her people of all ages and all walks of life are doing this and it's legal in Canada now, just demystify it for her so it's not a big deal for her." 
 
 Elina didn’t elaborate much on her experience in her national TV interview beyond saying it was “fun.” She did, however, share a great joke. 
 
 “Why did the cookie go to the doctor?” she said. “Cause it was feeling crummy.” ||||| Following a sharp increase in cannabis poisoning among young people, Canadian health professionals are calling for tighter controls to keep edible marijuana products away from minors. 
 
 Canada last month became the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis, but federal legislation prohibits the sale of edible versions of the drug until at least 2019. The law, however, has done little to stop online retailers and physical stores from openly selling brownies and candies infused with cannabis throughout the country. 
 
 Weed woes: Canada struggles to meet huge demand for legal cannabis Read more 
 
 Ontario and Alberta have already experienced nearly 600 cases of poisoning last year for patients under the age of 20, nearly twice the figure for 2014. The Canadian Institute for Health Information recorded 24 visit to the emergency room for children under the age of four last year in the two provinces. 
 
 “We’ve seen a spike for sure,” said Dr Margaret Thompson, director of the Ontario Poison Centre. “Will we see a huge increase as they did in some of the United States? I can’t say for sure.” 
 
 Following legalization, a number of US states experienced a significant jump in the hospitalizations related to cannabis. Colorado quickly tightened rules around the previously unregulated edibles market as emergency visits set a new record. In a bid to keep the product unappealing to children, the revised state rules prevented products from resembling animals, fruit or people, and limiting their THC content. 
 
 Because the effect of cannabis is delayed when eaten – and ingesting a gummy bear or cookie is easier than smoking – doctors have greater concerns over poisoning cases with edibles. 
 
 This summer, a young girl in British Columbia was rushed to the emergency room after her parents realized she’d consumed an unknown quantity of cannabis-infused gummy bears she found in the back seat of a car. 
 
 “It’s not fair to ask the entire world to police one person’s child. That’s the job of a parent– explicitly,” said Yannick Craigwell, who runs the online edibles store TreatsandTreats. “Parents should make sure if they purchase these things, it’s their responsibility to make sure it’s not available to kids.” 
 
 Health Canada already requires marijuana come in child-proof packaging when sold in government-run stores. But for health professionals, that might not be enough. 
 
 “As a toxicologist and an emergency physician, in both of those fields we certainly feel these products are attractive to children. And therefore, they put children at increased risk,” said Thompson.Health Canada has considered banning cannabis products with flavours that might appeal to children. 
 
 Because edibles cannot be legally purchased, there is no prescribed dosage of THC – the main psychoactive element of marijuana – in each unit. One company in Vancouver, which sells brownies online, has THC levels nearly nine times higher than Colorado’s legal amount. 
 
 Bill Blair, the cabinet minister overseeing legalization, has said that regulation stipulating the potency and purity of edibles will be introduced within a year. 
 
 The Cannabis Act already has strict rules against providing drugs to minors, with a maximum fine of $15,000 and as many as 14 years in jail. 
 
 “I definitely agree with the doctors that when you’re administering anything that’s considered a drug, there should be more rules that govern it,” said Craigwell. “But the problem is, we’re in such a grey area right now.” 
 
 • This article was amended on 29 November 2018. Changes made during the editing process led the piece to say that according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ontario and Alberta saw 24 children under the age of four taken to emergency rooms after eating cannabis edibles last year. Those visits were for poisoning, the institute does not collect data on how cannabis was ingested.
– Canada is still getting the hang of this legal marijuana thing, and one 9-year-old girl seems to be ahead of the curve. Elina Childs, who belongs to the Canadian version of the Girl Scouts, called Girl Guides, set up her wagon outside an Edmonton pot store and unloaded all 30 boxes of her cookies in just 45 minutes, reports CTV News. "They sold out very quickly," she says, giving her dad credit for the idea of pitching to customers who might soon have the munchies. Elina has cystic fibrosis and cannot be around smoke, but "this was one day she could benefit from smoking," dad Seann Childs tells the Canadian Press. (After just one hour of legalization came a milestone ticket to a driver.)