StatsCannabis data availability: Crowdsourced cannabis prices, second quarter 2018
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Released: 2018-07-06
Cannabis prices unchanged in the second quarter
Cannabis prices have remained unchanged in the first two quarters. The average price in the second quarter was $6.74 per gram, down slightly from the first quarter ($6.78 per gram). Combining StatsCannabis submissions with data obtained from the priceofweed.com website indicate that the price of cannabis has been trending downward since 2012. In 2018, the average price for cannabis was $6.77 per gram, down 25% from 2012 when the average price was $9.09 per gram.
Chart 1
Trends in cannabis prices
The highest prices for cannabis in the first six months of 2018 were in the territories and Ontario. The average price of a gram of cannabis in the territories was $10.50 per gram in the first six months of the year. The average price of cannabis in Ontario was $7.34 per gram. Prices were lowest in Quebec at $5.82 per gram.
Cannabis prices sensitive to quantity purchased
The average price per gram of cannabis paid by individuals is sensitive to the quantity purchased, with a discount appearing to be present at higher volumes. For Canada, in the second quarter, the average purchase price for quantities of less than 5 grams was $8.17 per gram. This compares with purchases of quantities between 5 grams and less than 28 grams that had an average price of $7.01 per gram and quantities of 28 grams or greater with an average price of $4.99 per gram.
Chart 2
Share of StatCannabis submissions by province or region, total
With legalization of cannabis scheduled for October 17, 2018, the StatsCannabis web application continues to provide important data to the cannabis statistics module at Statistics Canada. Individuals who have previously submitted data and those who have not are encouraged to share their data to help improve the quality of the collected data and ensure Canadians are well informed about the prices of cannabis prior to its legalization. Continued and more frequent posts on the Statscannabis application provide useful information on prices and usage.
Note to readers
Two data sources inform this release. The first is the Statistics Canada's crowd sourced data application "Statscannabis." The website application provides a platform for consumers of recreational and medical cannabis to anonymously provide information on prices and quantity purchased. StatsCannabis has been collecting information from consumers since January 2018 and has received 19,841 responses over that period.
The supplementary source of data is from the website priceofweed.com. This site similarly provides a forum for users to provide and compare prices for cannabis across Canada, but has been in operation for a much longer time period and provides data to construct the quarterly time series in this release.
The reporting period for the crowdsourcing application as reported here is January 25 to June 30, 2018. Caution must be exercised when interpreting these data because the sample is self-selected and the sample size fell rapidly from January through May; and therefore, the estimates are subject to statistical bias. Statistics Canada had developed a routine to detect outliers in the reported data. These outliers have been eliminated from the calculations. While 19,841 responses have been received, 17,994 were used in the calculations. These data are combined with records from priceofweed.com which has a pool of 7,261 responses from the first quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2018.
Products
The product Cannabis Stats Hub (13-610-X) is available.
The Latest Developments in the Canadian Economic Accounts (13-605-X) is available.
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
The System of Macroeconomic Accounts module features an up-to-date portrait of national and provincial economies and their structure.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).
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