Price of legal and illegal cannabis in Canada is much closer than you think
Part of the conversation around the price of cannabis on the licit and illicit market factors into the public’s perception of the success or failure of legalization
Monday, August 31, 2020
Much has been made about the price difference between the legal and illegal cannabis markets in Canada, but the information surrounding the topic of prices on the illicit and licit markets is misleading. Statistics Canada’s most recent figures from earlier this year show legal cannabis being about twice the supposed cost of illegal or black market cannabis, with legal cannabis on average selling at about $10.30 per gram compared to about $5.73 per gram for illicit cannabis. But while the numbers for legal cannabis provided by Statistics Canada are based on verifiable numbers in legal, regulated stores both online and brick-and-mortar, the pricing for cannabis purchased from the illegal sector is based on anonymous polling data collected by the federal government.