Statistics Canada published its report The Retail Cannabis Market in Canada: A Portrait of the First Year, charting the development of more than 400 physical stores (twice as many as four months ago) selling a combined $908M in products between online and retail sales.
- The less than $1B in sales fell far short of Deloitte’s prediction that the REC industry could hit $4.34B in the first year, and failed to meet’s Brightfield Group’s prediction of USD$1.2B in sales.
Bloomberg - For those concerned about growth in the legal industry, the news is good: it’s been close to constant.
Inside the Jar - The provinces received $640M in taxes from cannabis in the first year. (One commentator noted, “$600M in taxes on $900M in sales. Either this math is way off or we’ve found the reason why legal weed is so expensive.”)
Toronto Star, Twitter—Kev in the Shed
Despite having no stores before April 1 and a feeble 24 stores since, Ontario sold the most REC ($216.80M) while Northwest Terroitories ($2.74M) and Yukon ($4.22M) sold the least—though not per capita.
- Yukon sold $103 worth of cannabis per person, compared with $97 in PEI, $68 in Nova Scotia. BC, with its entrenched legacy system, only spent $10 per capita, while Ontario spent $15.
- Monthly REC sales have increased from $39.58M in October 2018 to $121.45M in September 2019—though over that same period, online sales declined from $17.17M to $7.12M.
Also this week, new StatsCan data on MED revealed MED sales declining since legalization.
Twitter—Rielle Capler
According to new Statistics Canada data, there are only 450,000 registered MED patients, out of a total 1,086,000 people who say they use MED, leaving 60% of MED patients outside the system.
Twitter—Dan Goulet
Quick Hits
- Saskatoon police laid only eight charges for cannabis-impaired driving (out of 41 impaired driving charges in the city of 273,000) in the first year after legalization.
CTV News - AdCann celebrated six examples of decent-looking packaging that’s Health Canada–compliant.
AdCann
