Residents of Canada’s greatest province by market measurement are shopping for increasingly more hashish from the authorized market, the Ontario Hashish Retailer (OCS) says in a brand new quarterly report.
Authorized hashish comprised 36.2% of all marijuana purchases in Ontario for the quarter protecting July, August and September, based on the report, which was launched Thursday.
That represents a quarter-over-quarter enhance of 11.1 share factors, which the OCS referred to as “the one largest bounce in market seize from the unlawful market.”
The OCS attributed its authorized market share estimate to Statistics Canada information and its personal calculations.
The rise in authorized market share coincided with a long-delayed enhance within the variety of brick-and-mortar hashish shops in Ontario, the place greater than 100 retailers had been licensed to open by late June and officers began ramping up the tempo of licensing in September.
The overwhelming majority of Ontario’s authorized hashish gross sales in the course of the quarter – greater than 85% – occurred in bodily retail shops.
“The variety of shops hit 183 by the tip of the quarter and is over 280 on the time of publication of this report,” OCS President and CEO Thomas Haig famous in his introduction to the report.
“It is a clear indicator that continued enhancements within the variety of customers selecting authorized will likely be pushed by creating a lot broader entry throughout Ontario.”
Authorized marijuana gross sales for the three-month interval totaled 204.3 million Canadian {dollars} ($160.4 million) on gross sales of 25.8 million grams and gram-equivalents of hashish.
The federal government-operated OCS has a monopoly on authorized hashish e-commerce in Ontario and in addition serves as the only marijuana wholesaler to licensed private-sector shops.
On-line gross sales via the OCS “predictably sagged” in the course of the quarter, stated Haig, “as (public-health) restrictions eased and the whole variety of shops grew, creating extra alternatives for customers to buy simply in shops of their neighborhood.”
In its final quarterly report, the OCS stated its on-line costs had been beating black-market costs with a median value of CA$7.05 per gram.
The brand new report says OCS’ on-line costs continued dropping in the course of the quarter, to a median of CA$6.41.
The typical value for a gram of hashish at private-sector retail shops additionally dropped on a quarterly foundation to CA$9.45, greater than the CA$8.17 illicit market value cited by OCS.
Solomon Israel could be reached at [email protected]