*The provincial excise taxes vary. Cannabis Benchmarks estimates the population weighted average excise tax for Canada.
**CCSI is inclusive of the estimated Federal & Provincial cannabis excise taxes.
The CCSI was assessed at C$5.22 per gram this week, up 0.8% from last week’s C$5.17 per gram. This week’s price equates to US$1,763 per pound at the current exchange rate.
- This week we look at the state of the legal medical cannabis market in Canada. The latest data from Statistics Canada gives us a view of the medical cannabis sector through the end of 2021 and shows that it is contracting sharply. As seen in the chart above, medical cannabis patient registrations have been on a steady decline, reaching levels of less than 250,000 at the end of 2021. Based on the trend, we expect that active medical registrants will fall to 200,000 by the end of this calendar year. Since the opening of the recreational cannabis market, individuals that were medical cannabis patients have turned to purchasing from recreational retailers as product variety and accessibility grow, and prices become increasingly competitive.
- Since recreational cannabis was legalized, the total number of medical cannabis shipments has also dropped by a large magnitude due to fewer potential customers. Total monthly shipments in October 2018 were 143,752, which fell by 36% to 91,560 in December 2021. We project total shipments to end this year at ~78,000 based on our projected active medical registrants.
- Provinces with well-developed recreational retail store footprints have seen the biggest loss in medical clients. Alberta, with the highest number of stores per capita, has seen active registrants drop by 57% since legalization. On the other hand, Quebec, with only 89 provincially-run retail cannabis stores, has seen patient registrations increase by 64%.
- The continued decline in the medical cannabis sector is putting pressure on cultivators that focus primarily on producing medical cannabis.