The price of marijuana in Canada has risen 17% since the recreational drug was legalized last fall, new data from Statistics Canada shows.
More people are using the drug and supply issues in many provinces have conspired to raise the price for marijuana to an average of $8.02 per gram, up 17.4% from $6.83 a gram before legalization on October 17 of last year.
Statistics Canada said it collected price information prior to legalization and compared it to the average price between that day and the end of 2018. Of the 385 price quotes it used from that period, half were from legal suppliers.
Statistics Canada has also found that legal marijuana costs more in Canada than when the drug is sold on the black market. The average price for marijuana from a legal supplier is $9.70 per gram, compared to $6.51 from illegal sources. Statistics Canada said the price discrepancy is due to provincial and federal taxes, plus the fees and licensing costs imposed on producers of legal pot.
The Statistics Canada survey also suggests that legalization has prompted more people to partake in marijuana use, as 7.7% of respondents said they had purchased the drug for the first time. About 61% of the first-time buyers purchased marijuana from legal sources. Men were more likely to purchase marijuana from a legal supplier than women, with 49.8% of male respondents buying from legal producers compared with 41.6% of female respondents.
