A tale of online pot orders across Canada
Canadians were eager to buy legal cannabis for recreational use online on Oct. 17, as government-run and privately operated pot portals were lit up with thousands of orders within the first 24 hours of legalization day.
However, the problems plaguing many of those initial orders such as delivery delays highlights the growing pains facing the newly legal market.
The Canadian Press tried to order the cheapest available gram or preroll of dried flower in each province and territory during the afternoon of Oct. 17. One order could not be completed and two had still yet to arrive more than one week later.
All websites required various age verification checks and most interfaces were easy to navigate, but the available product was low and delivery times were often slower than promised.
The fastest delivery was in Halifax where the bureau received its order within two days, while it took a full week before the order arrived in Iqaluit. The cheapest order including delivery was in Quebec at roughly $14 and the most expensive was in the Northwest Territories at more than $31.
Here’s how the pot order process rolled out across the country:
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Alberta
Delivery date: Oct. 19 Shipping fee: $9.95 Cost: $9.24 before tax, $20.15 total cost including shipping
After a few simple questions to verify age — Alberta’s site checks submitted answers against provincial databases — users are taken to the product page. Only plain white packages are shown. Each product entry provides THC content and whether it’s a sativa, indica or a hybrid. Strawberry Ice, $9.24 a gram, is described as “fun and fruity,” and “perfect for making the most of a sunny summer day.” The site won’t allow you to ship to a different address than the one provided for age verification. On Wednesday, the site offered 73 different types of dried flower from 24 different growers. By mid-afternoon, six were out of stock. It had four kinds of prerolled joints, two of which were gone by 3 p.m. Its only oil offering was also gone. The site was clean and classy, with lots of Alberta scenery and no psychedelia. You could be buying tires. The most expensive per-gram offering cost $14.95. The cannabis arrived Friday afternoon, two days after it was ordered, and picture identification with a current address was required.
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Saskatchewan
Delivery date: Online orders were not available on Oct. 17
Those looking to buy cannabis online from Jimmy’s Cannabis were out of luck on legalization day. A message on its website on Oct. 17 said it held back on online sales due to discussions between Health Canada and Canada Post, Jimmy’s shipping provider. Upon accessing its website, the user was asked to put in their date of birth. The website itself was both clean and trendy with a video playing above a header that said “Welcome to Jimmy’s.” There were five options at the top including flower, oil, accessories, apparel and a drop down with contact information, locations, about the company and the online shop. Upon clicking the online shop option, there were flowers, oil, pre-roll and accessories. However, on Oct. 22, Jimmy’s said in a post on its website that it was unable to open its e-commerce store “due to inventory shortages.” On Oct. 26, online cannabis sales were still unavailable.