The Canada Cannabis Spot Index was assessed at C$5.15 per gram this week, up 0.7% from last week’s C$5.12 per gram. This week’s price equates to US$1,845 per pound at the current exchange rate.
Each week, Business of Cannabis delivers a series of insights from our partners at Cannabis Benchmarks®.
This week Cannabis Benchmarks looks at the breakdown of monthly sales volumes between the recreational and medical cannabis markets. With the onset of legalization, many who had registered as medical cannabis clients have shifted to procuring their supply from the recreational market.
The ease of purchasing via a provincial online platform or a local retailer, along with the lower-priced products, has put significant pressure on medical cannabis suppliers. The number of active registered medical cannabis clients has trended downward since October 2018.
In Cannabis Benchmarks’ September 17 report, they estimated the current total dry cannabis sold in the legal Canadian marketplace. Cannabis Benchmarks estimates that the total dry cannabis sold in August 2021 was 31,314 kg.
Today, they take that analysis one step further, to break down the monthly volume and show how much was sold in the recreational versus the medical markets.
The chart above shows the steep drop in medical purchasing as a percentage of total volume sold.
Last month, Cannabis Benchmarks estimated that medical dry cannabis sales made up 3% of total sales volumes or 972 kg.
To put this number into perspective, this is only 50% of the volume sold for medical use in October 2018.
This should be a very concerning trend for those cultivators who specialize in selling a premium product for the medical market, especially as wholesale prices continue to fall in the recreational sector and competition increases.
Source: Canada Cannabis Spot Index, Cannabis Benchmarks
See previous weekly updates from Cannabis Benchmarks:
- A look at daily cannabis sales by Province
- How to view dry cannabis sales across Canada
- A look at percentage of legal versus illicit cannabis sales
- A look at the pace of growth for cannabis retail
- A look at monthly cannabis sales in Ontario
- What is the optimal number of cannabis stores in Canada?
- How to compare daily cannabis retail sales by Province
- Understanding the impact of cannabis on alcohol sales in Canada
- A look at cannabis retail store count by Province
- A look at cannabis user statistics in Canada
