LEGAL POT APPEALING

More users expected

Twenty-something pot lovers may be standing in line next to middleaged civil servants when Ottawa’s legal recreational cannabis stores open for business.

At least that’s the picture conjured up by a new report from Deloitte, an accounting and business services firm, which surveyed people across Canada to find out who planned to use marijuana, how often, where they would like to buy it and in what form.

The findings suggest marijuana may become mainstream more quickly than some anticipated as legalization attracts a new category of users the report calls “conservative experimenters.” It describes them as middle-aged people (35-54) people with university or graduate degrees whose personal interests come second to family responsibilities.

They expect to indulge in marijuana less than once a month. However, most are not cannabis neophytes: 74 per cent have previously tried recreational pot.

That’s in contrast to today ’s typical users, folks the report delicately describes as “risk-takers” aged 18 to 34, with high school or college education, who, “in their quest to live life to the fullest, (are) more likely to put their health or safety at risk, even going to far as to skirt or break the law.”

They often consume cannabis several times a week.

The report builds on a 2016 Deloitte survey that found 22 per cent of Canadians used cannabis at least occasionally, and another 17 per cent showed some willingness to try it once it was legal.

Statistics Canada provides a lower estimate of current use, with 12.3 per cent of Canadians reporting they used cannabis at least once in 2015.

The marijuana market is huge. Canadians spent about $5.7 billion last year on marijuana, according to Statistics Canada estimates.

The Deloitte study predicts cannabis will generate up to $7.17 billion in sales in the year after legalization, with as much as $4.34 billion of that from the legal recreational market. (The higher total spending is not all from increased demand, as prices will be higher in the legal market.)

The federal government has promised to have cannabis legal by summer. The black market will shrink substantially as soon as Canadians have the chance to buy cannabis legally, the report says. It predicts 63 per cent of recreational cannabis products will probably be purchased through legal channels in 2019.

Current consumers who say they ’ll stick to the black market are more likely to be aged 55 or older and to have high school education or less, the report found.

Consumers are willing to pay more for cannabis that’s grown and sold under government regulation, but not too much more. Across Canada, respondents said they would pay nine per cent more at a legal store, or $8.98 a gram, compared to the average black-market price of $8.24 a gram. However, in Quebec, where black-market prices are the lowest in Canada at $7.53 a gram, respondents said they would only pay 3.7 per cent more.

The report is based on a survey of 1,500 adult Canadians conducted online in March.