For the first time ever, cannabis sales made through Ontario's legal channels have surpassed sales made through the illicit black market.
The Ontario Cannabis Store said in its latest report that 54.2% of cannabis purchases made in Canada’s largest province between July and September were linked to legal retailers.
The figure is based on self-reported data that Statistics Canada collects from cannabis consumers, who may under report purchases made on the black market because of the stigma cannabis carries.
However, the latest data suggests that the cannabis market is at or nearing a long-awaited turning point after the legal industry spent the last three years slashing prices to compete with the black market and police raided unlicensed dispensaries.
The number of cannabis stores in Ontario soared to 1,115 in recent months, compared with 183 at the same time last year and 53 two years ago.
When recreational cannabis was legalized in 2018, the legal market was responsible for only 5.4% of cannabis purchases, but that number grew to 19% at the end of 2019 and 44.1% at the end of 2020.
Now, the Ontario Cannabis Store says sales made through legal channels totalled $394 million in the second quarter, up from $204.3 million at the same time in 2020. The most recent quarter's sales amounted to a record 56 million grams of cannabis.
Cannabis stores in the most recent quarter had 1,842 products on offer, including 389 that had just been added, said the Ontario Cannabis Store. The product categories generating the most sales were dried flower, vapes and pre-rolls, while beverages, capsules, topicals and seeds were responsible for the fewest sales.
