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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Canada: New poll says Canadians support the idea of independent pot retailers; few support liquor store sales of cannabis David Akin National Post Tuesday 18 Oct 2016 It’s going to be a big business: One Bay Street economist figures pot retailers will sell $10-billion a year worth of cannabis products. I’ve seen estimates that the Canadian market could grow to $20-billion a year. To put that in perspective, Statistics Canada says Canucks bought $9-billion worth of beer 2014-2015. So this cannabis market could be bigger than beer! So where are we going to buy these cannabis products? Right now, the only legal way to acquire cannabis products is by mail from a licensed producer. Purchasers need a prescription. But there’s a booming market — grey at best, black at worst — of what are called pot dispensaries, storefront operations where you can walk in and — so long as you’ve got an easily acquired prescription — buy what you need. I’ll introduce you to some of these independent pot retailers in my piece today. Now, as if right on cue, Vancouver-based pollster Insights West is out today with a survey of the attitudes of Canadians about pot retailers and other cannabis issues. Some findings: 36 per cent of all Canadians say they’re cool with pot being sold in stand-alone stories set up for the purpose of selling cannabis products versus 29 per cent who think it should be sold in drugstores or pharmacies, while 16 per cent think selling pot products is a job best left to liquor stores or other outlets where alcoholic beverages are sold. Most current and regular marijuana users say they get what they need “from a friend” (51 per cent) while 14 per cent of regular users get it from a dispensary. A significant majority (57%) of current regular marijuana users say they will abandon the way they get their pot now and buy it from a licensed store if and when that becomes legal. One stat that surprised me: Among Canadians that have never tried marijuana, fewer than one in 10 told the pollster they’d be likely to give it a try when it becomes legal. That finding could influence the public policy debate as those who are against legalization seem to think that making it legal means we’ll suddenly become a nation of potheads. And here’s a fun little wrinkle on that: 16 per cent of those who voted Liberal and who said they’ve never tried pot before would give it a try once it’s legal. Compare that to 3 per cent of those who voted Conservative and have never tried pot and just 2 per cent of those who voted New Democrat and have never tried pot. The data suggests that Canadians who have not tried marijuana will not suddenly become interested in it if is legalized “The data suggests that Canadians who have not tried marijuana will not suddenly become interested in it if is legalized,” Mario Canseco, Insights West vice-president said. “We saw a similar situation in Washington State, where only one-in-twenty adults tried marijuana for the first time after Initiative 502 came into law.” Support, incidentally, remains very strong for legalization with 62 per cent in favour and 18 per cent opposed. UPDATE: Canseco was kind enough to provide with some unpublished tables from this survey which correlates marijuana use and party vote last fall. Here’s the deets on that: Those who voted NDP appear to be heaviest pot users, with 29 per cent of those who said they voted NDP telling Insights West they were regular or casual users of marijuana products. But 60 per cent of those who voted New Democrat said they’d never tried pot. And 12 per cent said they’d tried it once. As for those who voted Liberal, 57 per cent said they’d never tried pot; 16 per cent said they’d done it once; and 27 per cent were regular or casual users. Conservatives? Well, it’s as you might expect: 73 per cent of those who voted for Harper last fall said they’d never tried pot; 14 per cent said just once. Just 1 per cent of last fall’s Tory voters said they were regular pot users while 11 per cent said they were casual users. Here’s the Canada-wide average: Regular: 9 per cent. One timer: 14 per cent. Casual: 16 per cent. Regular: 9 per cent. There’s data on a variety of other cannabis issues and you can look at the detailed statistical tables collected Insights West right here. Insights West surveyed 1,033 Canadian adults from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. A similarly sized poll of randomly selected Canadians would have a margin of of error about 3.1 percentage points. http://www.insightswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Marijuana2016_CAN_Tables.pdf http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/new-poll-says-canadians-support-the-idea-of-independent-pot-retailers-few-support-liquor-store-sales-of-cannabis
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