Canada's cannabis revisited

I was in Canada in June with Volteface, three MPs and a BBC documentary crew to look at the legal cannabis market. After the embargo finally ended a few weeks ago, I caught up for a beer with Volteface's Paul North to discuss the trip.

We recorded it for this podcast. It's a nice, relaxed chat with lots of behind-the-scenes information. Do check it out.


It reminded me to check up on the latest figures from Statistics Canada. As I have previously discussed, the black market has remained much larger than the legal market, thanks to high prices and excessive regulation in the latter. In the first quarter of this year, only 34 per cent of the market was legal (including medical cannabis).

The latest stats released two weeks ago show that this has increased slightly, to 39 per cent. Looking only at recreational cannabis, the legal market makes up just under a third. Overall, cannabis sales have gone down very slightly after a notable rise.

Still much to be done. Prices have to come down.