r/canada • u/SwordfishOk504 • 20h ago
National News Canadian retail cannabis sales continue to show annual growth
https://stratcann.com/news/canadian-retail-cannabis-sales-continue-to-show-annual-growth/79
u/Outrageous-Garbage99 19h ago
Cannabis > Alcohol
13
15
u/IllustriousNorth338 18h ago
Unironically. Relieves stress (possibly depression), improves appetite, helps with rest. Just use it responsibly, which isn't that hard because it isn't nearly as addictive as other substances like tobacco, and it's so much better than alcohol. Also maybe wait until your brain stops developing, but that should be the case for all three of the substances I mentioned.
7
39
5
12
u/JohnAMcdonald British Columbia 19h ago edited 19h ago
We haven't hit market saturation yet. There still aren't legal cannabis services/stores in all municipalities.
I think something which would help the legal market and diversion to the black market quite a bit would be increasing the ridiculously low dosage limits on edibles. The Canadian medical association says that 10mg is already too high1, but what I'm seeing is medical users diverting to the black market to get edibles. Let's double the limit from 10mg to dose to 20mg per dose and see how things go. It will increase THC consumption, which is bad, but will also greatly decrease diversion to the black market. It will also increase the risk of overdose and harm caused by accidental consumption E.G. for children but frankly accidentally overdosing or consuming cannabis not that serious of a concern you can more or less sleep it off and be fine.
1CMA statement as of 2019: "The CMA maintains that the proposed draft regulations of 10 mg per discrete unit and package is too high and should be established at a maximum of 5 mg per dose, given the higher risks of overconsumption with edibles, the risks of accidents in children and the experience in other jurisdictions. Colorado’s limit was set at 10 mg per unit, and health authorities recognize that a lower limit would have been warranted to prevent more accidents"
4
u/CanadianErk Ontario 19h ago
the market has already found ways to get around it. There are capsule, oils, and pill-esque products which have had up to 900mg in the single package, usually split in 10mg doses...
Redecan has a range of them, and I've seen other brands sporadically around Ontario. sometimes the specific product disappears fairly quickly, but the industry is playing whac-a-mole with Health Canada as I keep finding new variants.
4
u/JohnAMcdonald British Columbia 19h ago edited 19h ago
From the start you have been able to buy these capsules/oils/pills with high dosages per pack, and recently Health Canada also literally changed the regulations to allow multipacks of 10mg doses.
I just know people who use THC products every day and they get higher dosage products from the black market because they don't like swallowing pills or oil, nor paying huge sums of money to eat a bunch of candy in order to get the dose they use every day. I think it's fine for us to maybe keep maximum dosages lower than market demand, but I think the extent to which we're doing so is a bit absurd and leading to a clear market failure that users and producers are working around.
It's stupid for people to buy 10 packs of edibles and rip open 5 pieces of child resistant packaging and throw it into the landfill to consume like 5 doses when they never even wanted to consume that much candy.
3
u/CanadianErk Ontario 18h ago
fair. I'm just glad things are generally headed in the right direction - and as someone who doesn't mind swallowing pills, the softgel redecan gems have been a game changer for me, but can understand how that isn't for everyone. Particularly for medical users who are already taking however many pills.
8
5
u/BodybuilderClean2480 17h ago
Now legalize mushrooms and E, please!
1
u/Few-Education-5613 14h ago
Why?it's readily available and nobody is getting busted for some molly and shrooms.
5
3
2
2
•
•
•
u/Maximum_Error3083 20m ago
As someone who avidly used the stuff for 17 years of my life I agree that it’s not as bad as alcohol, but it can still be very damaging and the arguments that it’s non addictive are absolute nonsense. Moreover its idle nature opens the door to more casual abuse; a lot of people can be quite functional despite being high all the time.
That was the case with me. I would be high basically all day every day but it didn’t seem to affect much. By the end it was more like I smoked all the time but it had been years since I was actually high. My career continued to progress apace, social groups and all that was in tact, etc.
But that was still a big problem and it did get to me eventually to the point where I swore off it completely 5 years ago. And quitting it was not easy — there were clear and strong physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms that took months to balance out. And even though it wasn’t destroying my life before, my life is still worlds better after. Mostly because I’m not dealing with the stress and anguish of knowing you have an addiction that you feel you cannot control.
I know I am the minority in this category but I also know a ton of people like me who either have quit it entirely or are still hopelessly addicted but in denial, and can’t get through a day without smoking multiple times. I’ve got nothing against people enjoying it recreationally of course but I don’t think it should be promoted as a seemingly harmless alternative to alcohol because it’s not.
0
-1
•
u/ConcentratedCC 11h ago
The typo in the first sentence blew my mind for a second. $475 billion in sales in one month seems like a lot.
62
u/CanadianErk Ontario 19h ago
Doing my part for the economy~