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posted by martyb on Friday November 16 2018, @12:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the supply-went-Up-In-Smoke dept.

Why is Canada running out of marijuana?

Cannabis retailers in Canada began to run low on supplies from the very first day of legalisation a month ago. How long are shortages expected to continue as the new market for recreational cannabis finds its feet?

In the early days of legalisation, James Burns was confident his company had enough product on the shelves of its five new cannabis retail stores, even though they only received half of their order from the provincial supplier. Now, he has had staff refreshing the government supply website in the early hours to snap up scarce new stock as soon as it's available, and is considering restricting store hours.

"While there was product to order we were very comfortably getting a large amount of it," says Burns, the CEO of Alcanna, a company that owns a chain of private liquor stores in Canada and the US and, now, cannabis stores in the province of Alberta. "But obviously, when there's literally none there, it doesn't matter how big you are, there's just none there. If the government warehouse is empty, it's empty. There's nothing you can do."

[...] A report released in early October by the CD Howe Institute, a Toronto-based economic think tank, estimates that the current legal supply will meet about 30% to 60% of total demand in the first months of legalisation. But people in the industry say the scarcity is worse than expected. "Everybody knew this was going to happen," says Burns. "Probably, frankly, not this quick and this starkly."

Patrick Wallace, owner of Waldo 420 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, predicts it will be a year to 18 months before supply matches demand. "We're riding on our initial investment of stock from a few weeks back," he says. "So we're OK now but it's not sustainable."

Previously: Canada Becomes the Second Nation to Legalize Cannabis
Peter Thiel's Cannabis Company Was Briefly Worth More Than Twitter
Hostage to NAFTA? Canada Signs on to War on Drugs Despite Recent Cannabis Legalization
Cannabis Becomes Legal in Canada


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @02:43PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @02:43PM (#762701)

    But the invisible hand of the market is supposed to fix that, no?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday November 16 2018, @02:48PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday November 16 2018, @02:48PM (#762703) Journal

    Yes, street dealers in Canada get to keep hustling for at least a few more months.

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