Street Cannabis is Cheaper than Canada’s Proposed Legal Cannabis Price
New findings from Statistics Canada (StatCan) reveal that the street value for black market cannabis is at least 13 Canadian cents cheaper per gram than Canada’s proposed legal price. The report was released on December 18.
Keeping legal cannabis affordable is the key to keeping consumers from resorting to the black market as a source.
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau recently announced that Canada’s government is proposing setting the price of legal cannabis at C$10 per gram plus a federal excise tax of C$1 or 10 percent, whichever is higher. The same report found the average price of street cannabis at C$8.84 per gram.
Even at C$10 ($7.76 USD), the proposed legal price of cannabis is still higher than black market cannabis.
“Whether [illegal cannabis] is a dollar or two [cheaper], in this day and age people will always look for the best price, so why increase the risk?” Vancouver Councillor Dr. Jang. “Where Ottawa came up with that$10 we have no clue.” Other disagreed, assuming that recreational cannabis consumers would be willing to pay more for the larger selection at dispensaries and for the safety that testing provides.
Canada’s black market of cannabis was valued at $6.2 billion in 2015 with a price range of C$7.15 to C$8.84. That compares to PriceOfWeed.com, which valued the average gram of top shelf at only C$7.56, based on nearly 10,000 self-reported submissions. StatCan turned to PriceOfWeed.com, as well as social media and crowdsourcing to find as much data as possible.
Statscan now plans on conducting a series of four household surveys in 2018 to learn about consumer habits including if they buy their cannabis illegally on the black market. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau originally vowed to legalize cannabis across Canada by July 2018, but time will tell.
