Home > How people living in Canada consume and acquire cannabis: assessing progress in minimizing harms and establishing a safe supply chain.

Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. (2022) How people living in Canada consume and acquire cannabis: assessing progress in minimizing harms and establishing a safe supply chain. Ottawa: Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.

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Key findings:

  • Preliminary evidence suggests progress has been made on two stated goals of the Cannabis Act, to minimize harms and to establish a safe and responsible supply chain.
  • As a broader range of regulated product options become available, people who consume cannabis are shifting away from higher-risk, inhalation-based methods of consumption, and towards oral ingestion.
  • The evidence suggests that although people’s attitudes are slightly less opposed to concurrent alcohol and cannabis usage than before legalization, their behaviours do not reflect that change as concurrent alcohol and cannabis usage did not increase throughout the surveyed years.
  • The number of people buying cannabis through legal channels has increased significantly year after year. In 2017, a private dealer was the most common avenue of acquisition. In 2020, the two most common avenues were legal physical dispensaries and legal online dispensaries.
  • Individuals who continued to purchase cannabis through illegal channels were more likely to be male, less likely to be college or university graduates, consumed cannabis more frequently, and agreed more strongly that illegal cannabis is cheaper and of higher quality, and should not be regulated by the government.
  • Overall, the report findings suggest a shift in cannabis usage patterns and attitudes before and after legalization. This data provides valuable knowledge on existing beliefs around cannabis use and acquisition, and can inform cannabis use prevention initiatives and education messaging.

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