A Third of Canadian Pot Users Have Never Actually Paid For It

One-third of Canadians who say they have used cannabis in the last three months, also say that they have spent no money purchasing the drug, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

Approximately 4.6 million people — or 16 percent of Canadians aged 15 and older — have used cannabis in the last three months, but only 67 percent seem to have actually purchased cannabis, possibly implying that a significant number of people who consume cannabis are somehow freeloading from others who have paid for weed, or perhaps, not being truthful about their cannabis consumption habits.

Nearly one million Canadians — or 21 percent of weed users — say they spent more than $250 on cannabis in the second quarter of 2018, while another 25 percent spent up to $100, and the remaining 21 percent spent up to, but not more than $250 on cannabis or cannabis products. This pattern of spending appeared to be relatively unchanged from the first quarter of 2018, according to the National Cannabis Survey, an information gathering exercise conducted by Stats Canada to monitor exactly how cannabis use in Canada is changing in the lead up to recreational legalization.

As expected, those who consume cannabis more often, end up spending more, while those who said they consumed weed “infrequently” spent either very little on weed, or nothing at all. “Among cannabis users who said they only tried or used cannabis once or twice over the period of the last three months, more than 60 percent indicated they had spent nothing,” the survey said.

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