Canada’s statisticians survey potheads
More over-45s are getting high, but teenagers are keeping off the grass
“MADE IN CANADA”, not “made in Colorado”: that is how a Canadian senator described the country’s approach to legalising the recreational use of cannabis in a debate last summer. As lawmakers sought to frame rules that would have the best possible chance of squeezing the illicit market and keeping teenagers off the grass, they looked around the world for evidence. Disappointed by how little they found, they decided to blaze a trail.
That meant establishing a baseline for comparison. Before the new law came into force in October 2018, Statistics Canada started to estimate prices and the size of the illicit market, and to carry out quarterly surveys of Canadians’ cannabis usage. Earlier this month it released the fifth of these—the first before-and-after comparison of the same part of a year.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline "Dank stats, bro"
Finance & economics May 18th 2019
- The biggest collapse in private-equity history will have a lasting impact
- China vows a “fight to the end” in trade feud with America
- The IMF has agreed to break Pakistan’s fall. Again
- Uber’s listing and a new stock exchange may herald change
- Canada’s statisticians survey potheads
- Instant buyers are changing the way people buy and sell their homes
- Beneath the dull surface, Europe’s stockmarket is a place of extremes
- Economists are rethinking fiscal policy
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