Ruminations

Judging The Experiment

Released: 2019-08-15
Canadian males aged 15 and older are more likely to consume cannabis compared with their female counterparts. Males use cannabis more frequently—they are also more likely than females to consume it for non-medical reasons and to purchase the cannabis they use.
New data from the National Cannabis Survey (NCS) continue to show that males and females differ in how they obtain and consume cannabis products post legalization.
Females, for example, more often report getting cannabis from family and friends than their male counterparts, which may also explain why fewer females pay for the cannabis they consume.
The use of "other" methods of cannabis consumption, such as "on the skin or under the tongue" is also more common among females.
Males are more likely to report consuming dried cannabis (flower/leaf) and hashish.
The Cannabis Act (C-45) became law on October 17, 2018. To monitor cannabis consumption before and after the legislative change, Statistics Canada has been conducting the NCS every three months (quarterly) since 2018. This release provides the latest information about cannabis use in Canada. Analyses of data for the first half of 2019, as well as for the second quarter of 2019, are available.
Statistics Canada

This is a screenshot of the Ontario Cannabis Store website, which sells dried flower for as low as $7.50 a gram. OCS

In the StatsCan collection of data an estimated 48 percent of cannabis users surveyed by Statistics Canada stated the legal market was the source of 'some' of their cannabis. Canadians, in other words are self-reporting that they obtain 'some' of their marijuana legally, and the remainder through the same illegal black-market sources that the legislation was meant to put out of business. Well, it's early days yet, just a year since the federal government legalized possession.

It would appear however, from an analysis of the responses received by StatsCanada that fewer than 30 percent of consumers of cannabis actually make their purchases exclusively from the legal market. The latest quarterly snapshot published and made public by the venerable old statistical-gathering institution indicated that Canadians spent $5.9 billion on cannabis. The black market accounted for $4.7 billion of that total, interestingly enough.

Which, of course, like the illegal market for counterfeit tobacco, deprives the government of any profit through taxes. And what it really means is that 80 percent or thereabouts of all cannabis bought in Canada was derived from the black market. So much for government intervention to free up cannabis use for Canadians and at the same time controlling quality and gathering revenues by opening up a new, legal consumer market.

While much of the stigma attached to drug use with a popular recreational drug has been removed, the other two essential reasons for enacting the critical legislation remain unfulfilled. But the problem of avoiding cannabis use by teens, of persuading cannabis users not to smoke up and drive, remains even as anticipated revenues remain elusive and purchasers are frustrated by ongoing government bureaucracy in the availability of the product they crave.

Will you buy legal cannabis? Graeme Roy / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Price, access and product variability all represent issues that put users off legal purchases. Illegal cannabis is considerably less expensive to purchase than its legal variety; the price gap is extremely persuasive to people deciding to stick with what they know best; their long-time dealer. At the federal level, legal cannabis has GST attached, a ten percent excise tax, and a half billion dollars representing producers' compliance fees, all expenses passed on to consumers.

All of this, including provincial boutique taxes, double the price of legal cannabis for consumers who then seek out illegal cannabis, cheaper and more readily accessible since legal stores offer a limited product. A product not on display other than in boringly plain packaging for which marketing and advertising restrictions limit their appeal to the consumer.

Yet another government initiative taking over from the private sector to improve consumer experience, ending up a roaring success story.