On day two of recreational cannabis legalization in Canada, retailers are turning people away because they’ve run out of stock.
Quebec’s cannabis Crown corporation said some items are unavailable on its website, and given the scarcity of products across Canada, it expects “significant” short-term supply challenges.
Alberta and Prince Edward Island also said certain products have sold out online after brisk business on their cannabis sales portals on the first day of legalization.
It’s the same across the country.
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Winnipeg marijuana advocate Steven Stairs also said there is a big shortage of cannabis with the risk of even running out.
“It’s a supply and demand,” said Stairs. “They’re worried about even having enough stock in the stores in the next few weeks.”
“We’re talking about possibly even running out of cannabis and these companies are trying to keep up with demand, but it’s really not feasible right now due to the scale of production that they have going,” Stairs told Global News Radio 680 CJOB.
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Additional growing pains facing the industry is legal pot’s pricing, which Stairs says is brought up by high taxes and extensive red tape.
“When the government sees that their regulation and taxation system is burdening their ability to defeat the black market, they will take another look at how they do things,” said Stairs.
The ‘grey market’ dilemma
A range of issues, from licenses to packaging, has contributed to the supply issues Canadians are now facing.
“Most of the cannabis produced in Canada right now…doesn’t come out of the black market but rather medically licensed growers, the grey market,” Cannabis Commerce Association of Canada director Jaclynn Pehota told Global News.
She said while these small-scale producers grew pot legally, the pot wasn’t sold legally.
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“The project of legalization, in my opinion, was TO capture those cultivators and bring them into a regulated recreational market,” she said. “Failing to do that has resulted in what we see right now.”
These growers haven’t been able to move over to the recreational market because licenses for them weren’t available before Oct. 17. Those who applied on Wednesday will still have to wait for their application to be processed.
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As for large-scale growers with the appropriate licenses, such as Tweed or Aurora, there have been issues that have limited supply.
“Problems with crop failures… there’s been excuses on packaging delays, etc.” Pehota said.
“Leaving retailers and consumers in this like bizarre limbo where they have limited supplies of mediocre kinds of products.
Pehota said there’s nothing stopping consumers from returning to the black or grey market.
“If you can’t compete on price point, if you can’t compete on price, if you can’t compete on variety, then you’re in a tough spot,” she said. “And that’s exactly where we are now.”
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“Once the government fixes their regulatory and taxation system supply will soar,” Stairs agreed, “bringing demand and prices down.”
*with files from the Canadian Press