This means community store bans could lead to more crime and health problems rather than less. But without such stores, users will keep visiting illicit sources where products might be misrepresented or contaminated. Those users will increasingly buy legally if local shops open. Are opt-outs mostly cop-outs?Īt the municipal level, politicians banning licensed stores might think they’re protecting residents.īut my study implies communities will see similar user growth after legalization whether they allow shops or not. But it has implications for other government levels too. My study analyzed province-level outcomes. Canada’s cannabis use had been increasing since 2010. Or the growth might have just represented ongoing trends.

That could have encouraged non-users to start, regardless of whether shops opened nearby. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan DenetteĬanada’s 2018-20 user growth might have instead come from legalization’s removal of criminal penalties. But where shops were plentiful, users increasingly bought legally.Ī cannabis store employee arranges products in June 2020 in Toronto. In other words, almost the same user growth occurred regardless of how many shops opened. A simple quarterly trend better explained the user increases. That’s a lot, given that many other factors like pricing, consumer tastes and weather also affect sales.īy contrast, store growth explained just eight per cent of user growth. Differences in provincial store growth explained 46 per cent of the differences in sales growth. My study compared per capita growth in store numbers, recreational cannabis sales dollars and user numbers from 2018 to 2020 in Canada. This apparent trade-off motivated my research. But some politicians and residents worry they’d also boost cannabis use and crime. Licensed shops could provide economic benefits. More recently, 71 per cent of towns in New Jersey and 90 per cent of those in Maine did likewise. Meanwhile in the U.S., most California municipalities opted out of allowing stores after recreational sales began there in 2018. Several million Canadians live in places that ban licensed shops, including cities like Mississauga, Ont., and Surrey, B.C. What the United States can learn from Canada’s cannabis clarity

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