Legal cannabis prices in Canada are catching up to their illegal counterparts for the first time, according to new research from Deloitte and Neobi.
A new study, ‘Clearing the Smoke – Insights into Canada’s Illicit Cannabis Market’, examined available cannabis products on 624 legal adult-use stores, and 57 illegal unlicensed stores, seeking to compare the respective product catalogues and prices.
According to the findings, the gap between illegal and legal product prices has closed significantly since 2019, seeing average prices per gram of cannabis flower fall from a difference of 55% to just 20% this year.
As such, the average price of a gram of cannabis flower from illicit sources was found to be $6.24 per gram, while legal prices stood at an average of $7.96.
On average, illicit flower products were priced at 78.4% of their legal counterparts, indicating that the declining prices in the legal market may have contributed to more capture of the market.
Price disparity was also dependent on the amount of cannabis being sold in a single unit, with the differential largest at the 3.5 gram package size, where illicit prices were 67.8% of their legal alternative.
Conversely, the difference was lowest at 28-gram packages, with illicit prices representing 98.1% of the average legal price.
