It’s been five days since Canada legalised marijuana and retailers are already burning through their stock.
Licensed dispensaries are struggling to keep up with demand, with some forced to post “out of stock signs” and shut up shop.
“It’s a mess. The supply is just a mess,” Patrick Wallace, owner of the Alberta shop Waldo’s 420 Store, told CBC.
Hundreds of weed lovers stood in line for hours on October 17 when Canada became only the second country in the world – behind Uruguay – to legalise recreational cannabis.
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Canadians are now allowed to carry up to 30 grams of cannabis in public, while households can grow up to four marijuana plants.
According to Statistics Canada, 5.4 million Canadians will buy cannabis from licensed dispensaries this year – about 15 per cent of the population.
“We expected, you know, certain strains might run out and there would be a bit of a run on supply,” Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief who led the government’s legalisation program, told CBC.
“But, you know, they’ve got a pretty good infrastructure in place and I’m confident it will work.”
Thomas Clarke, who runs THC Distribution in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, said he started out with low stock because his producer failed to fill the order.
“I’m a little shocked that I sold out so fast, and also very upset that I don’t have product for everybody,” he told CBC. “I’m letting down a lot of people here and I was assured that if I paid for the cannabis I would receive it.”
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The shortage isn’t a complete surprise, with Rolling Stone reporting that retailers which began pre-ordering their initial supply in September found not everything advertised was actually available.
Meanwhile, a cannabis industry study by University of Waterloo and the CD Howe Institute found licensed producers would only be able to meet up to 60 per cent of demand in the first year of legalisation.
“Perhaps then they would have said ‘Maybe we should be buying it by the truckload rather than the palette load’,” angry customer John Matheson told the Montreal Gazette. “They could have known this a long time ago. For me the score is: black market one, government zero.”
Medical marijuana has been legal since 2001 in Canada, with the Trudeau government spending the last two years working to legalise recreational pot.
Canadians can now purchase weed and weed products at dispensaries or order them through websites run by provinces or private retailers.
Some provinces have government-run stores, others allow private retailers, and some have both.
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