While people have been paying more for many goods and services, such as food and rent, during the last several years, there’s at least one consumer item bucking that trend: legal cannabis.
According to a Capital Current analysis of data from Statistic Canada’s Consumer Price Index, the cost of recreational cannabis was down 3.6 percent nationwide in December 2023 compared to the same time last year. “Recreational cannabis” refers to the dried cannabis flower, the agency says.
The yearly decrease continues a trend dating back to 2018 when the federal government legalized weed. Since legalization, the cost has decreased by 28 percent.
“There [are] just not enough consumers buying legal cannabis for all those stores to make a good profit,” said Michael Armstrong, a cannabis policy researcher and an associate economics professor at Brock University. His focus is on policy and the economic state of the Canadian cannabis industry. Armstrong says that one cause of this downward trend is competition. He also says that there are too many stores.
The problem worsened because of the overproduction of cannabis in Ontario. “There’s way more cannabis being grown than ultimately was sold.”
Read more at capitalcurrent.ca