COVID-19: a “boon” for the legal cannabis market in Canada

Two years after the legalization of cannabis in Canada, the marijuana industry is doing better than ever during the pandemic.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has thus allowed the legal market to compete with the black market in the sale of cannabis, Global News reported.

“It’s been a boon for the legal industry,” David Soberman, professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, told the media.

Cannabis outlets generated more than $ 231 million during the month of July, a 15% jump in sales from the previous month. This is the biggest monthly increase since legalization.

For Terry Kulaga, founder of Weed Me, a legal cannabis production company in Ontario, the pandemic is the source of this increase in profit:

“People spend more time at home, they may be more comfortable with cannabis use,” he explained in an interview with Global News.

Data produced by Statistics Canada also showed that Canadians spent 74% more between April and June 2020 than during the same period the previous year. The decline in black market spending, meanwhile, is less than 5% over the same period.

“There has been a downturn in the black market as people are much more reluctant to go out and meet their regular canais dealer like they were before the pandemic,” David Soberman told Global News.

In addition to the impact of COVID-19, the increase in the number of outlets in the provinces and more competitive prices in the legal market have also played a role in the increase in authorized consumption.

Indeed, the selling price per gram of cannabis at the start of the year would have been nearly a dollar cheaper on the legal market than on the black market, the Ontario Cannabis Store found.

And for the University of Toronto marketing professor, consumers should continue to be loyal to the licensed industry, even after the pandemic:

“Even after the pandemic is over and when we have a vaccine, you will find that people have become accustomed to buying their jar legally. And it will take some time before the black market can recover perhaps more of what it was selling before, ”he told the media.