{"id":100438,"date":"2025-04-02T14:28:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T18:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=100438"},"modified":"2025-04-02T14:28:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T18:28:47","slug":"opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-how-retail-expansion-impacted-canadian-cannabis-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2025\/04\/opinion-michael-armstrong-discusses-how-retail-expansion-impacted-canadian-cannabis-use\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Michael Armstrong discusses how retail expansion impacted Canadian cannabis use"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ever since\u00a0recreational cannabis was legalized\u00a0across Canada in 2018, researchers have been\u00a0studying what that decision\u00a0changed for Canadians.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve learned, for example, that\u00a0some patients immediately left\u00a0the\u00a0medical cannabis system, presumably to use recreational products instead. Conversely, legalization appeared to have\u00a0no effect on Canadian alcohol sales.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve similarly seen how cannabis retailing has evolved since it became legal.<\/p>\n

Retailers suffered from\u00a0product shortages\u00a0during legalization\u2019s first six months, but steadily expanded soon after. Canada went from having some 210 stores in April 2019 to 3,500 in April 2023. The ensuing competition\u00a0pushed prices down 28 per cent\u00a0during that period.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, provincial governments have tried various regulatory approaches. Some initially restricted the number of stores to avoid tempting non-users. Qu\u00e9bec still has\u00a010 times fewer stores\u00a0per capita\u00a0than Ontario does\u00a0as a result. Other provinces have set minimum prices to discourage people from overindulging. For example,\u00a0Ontario won\u2019t let wholesale prices\u00a0drop below $2.28 per gram.<\/p>\n

These developments in business and government policy prompted\u00a0my latest research. I wanted to understand what effect retail expansion had on cannabis use. To do this, I analyzed consumer responses on\u00a0government surveys collected between 2019 to 2023. I then compared these responses to the\u00a0recreational cannabis consumer price index\u00a0and the numbers of licensed stores in each province.<\/p>\n

Did Canadians consume cannabis more widely, more frequently and at younger ages as it became more accessible and affordable? The answer was mostly no.<\/p>\n

More women and older adult consumers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The percentage of men who used cannabis stayed around 28 per cent between 2019 and 2023 \u2014 despite retailers\u2019 massive store growth and notable price cuts.<\/p>\n

But usage did grow slightly among women \u2014 rising from 21 per cent in 2019 to 23 per cent in 2023. My analysis suggests this was related to the increasing affordability of cannabis, not its retail convenience. More women consumed cannabis when prices fell, not when more shops opened.<\/p>\n

A similar contrast appeared between younger and older adults. Cannabis use among Canadians aged 25 and over crept upward from 21 to 23 per cent. That increase again seemed related to falling prices rather than expanding stores. Meanwhile, usage among those aged 16 to 24 varied year-to-year, but remained around 46 per cent.<\/p>\n

The average age of first-time use consequently rose from 19.2 in 2019 to 20.8 years old in 2023. This finding also seemed correlated with both falling prices and expanding stores.<\/p>\n

Same frequency, more edibles<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing that didn\u2019t change much was frequency of use. About one-quarter of cannabis consumers used it five or more days per week in both 2019 and 2023.<\/p>\n

However, their product preferences shifted. The percentage who smoked dried cannabis decreased while the percentage of consumers who consumed edibles increased. Some consumers used both types of products, or used other products entirely \u2014 such as vapes. Both changes seemed related to prices rather than the number of retail stores. Consumers seemingly traded-up from basic dried cannabis to processed edibles as prices fell.<\/p>\n

So overall, Canada\u2019s substantial retail developments came with only modest usage growth.<\/p>\n

The apparent relationships between usage and price might partly be coincidental. Product selection and quality also improved, so they likely contributed too. But falling prices do seem to be a plausible explanation for the increased cannabis consumption that was seen.<\/p>\n

The lack of relationship between stores and usage might seem surprising. After all, Canada experienced a 16-fold explosion in stores between 2019 and 2023. But this finding correlates with what\u00a0my previous research found; it showed that between 2018 and 2020, there was a similar non-relationship between retail expansion of cannabis stores and usage.<\/p>\n

So, perhaps the main effect of retail stores was to draw existing users away from illegal dealers, rather than to tempt new ones.<\/p>\n

I suspect retailers probably influenced usage somewhat in their local neighbourhoods. For example, someone who walked by a new store daily on their way to work might have decided to try cannabis. But this effect would have been too small to appear in province-level measurements.<\/p>\n

Price restriction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The findings from my study suggests some tentative lessons for regulators.<\/p>\n

If opening more stores has minimal impact on usage, there\u2019s little need to limit their numbers. Provinces don\u2019t need to ration store licenses, and municipalities (like\u00a0Markham and Oakville\u00a0in Ontario) don\u2019t need to ban them.<\/p>\n

But since price declines tempt more consumers, it\u2019s important for policymakers to prevent prices from getting too low.<\/p>\n

Other countries who are considering legalizing cannabis may want to consider these points, too.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0medical cannabis use is surging\u00a0in Australia, much like it was in Canada a decade ago. And Australia\u2019s\u00a0Green Party is campaigning\u00a0for recreational legalization in the upcoming federal election. If that election produces a coalition government, legalization might be on its agenda. They could look at our policies and hopefully improve on them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Germany, the previous government legalized recreational use, but not sales. So, Germans must grow their own plants or join a club that does. Commercial products are sold only through the country\u2019s medical cannabis system. Unsurprisingly,\u00a0medical use is soaring there. Based on what my research suggests, Germany will likely see similar usage growth, whether it allows stores or not. But allowing stores would mean consumers could buy products from licensed sources instead of illicit dealers.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s cannabis legalization\u00a0was controversial at the time. But some Canadians say it has become a memorable part of\u00a0Justin Trudeau\u2019s complicated legacy. Now that he\u2019s no longer prime minister, that\u2019s something he and his biographers can contemplate.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Armstrong, Associate Professor of Operations Research at Brock University, recently published a piece in The Conversation about how cannabis retail expansion impacted consumption in Canada. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,6],"tags":[3327,2852,594,4395,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100438"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100441,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100438\/revisions\/100441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}