The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Sept. 25, edition that British Columbia had the lowest sales of legal cannabis of any province on a per-capita basis in July.
The Globe's Matt Lundy writes that Alberta, which has hundreds of retail stores, sold more than four times the dollar value of legal cannabis per person.
B.C. recorded $5.5-million of legal cannabis sales in July. It lagged smaller provinces such as Nova Scotia, and found itself well behind Ontario's pace-setting $29.6-million in sales.
Put another way, B.C. sold $1.09 of legal cannabis for every resident, compared with $9.55 in Prince Edward Island and $5.91 in Nova Scotia. The weak sales suggest B.C. will face a longer road than most in eradicating the black market.
Brock University business professor Michael Armstrong says the problem is worse in B.C. because the province has a well developed black market that has been built up over decades.
A tepid rollout of retail stores has also weighed on legal sales. Though B.C. offered digital orders on Day 1 of legalization, it had only one government-run store in Kamloops. B.C. is the only province that has taken a mixed public and private-sector approach to retailing.
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