| Nearly three years after cannabis was legalized in Canada, more Canadians consume pot than previously thought, while the overall stigma of the plant continues to fade, according to a new study released by Dalhousie University. The study, based on a survey of Canadians conducted last month, found that 42 per cent of respondents consider themselves a cannabis consumer, with roughly 12 per cent stating that they have begun to use marijuana after it was legalized in October 2018. That's significantly higher than the 20 per cent of Canadians believed to have used cannabis, according to a recent Statistics Canada report, and up from 36 per cent from a similar Dalhousie study conducted in 2019.
"It's clear that the acceptance and consumption of cannabis social stigma is dropping," said Brian Sterling, a research associate in the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and president of SCS Consulting, who co-authored the report. Sterling co-wrote the study alongside Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. "It's becoming normalized. More people are buying it legally. Most people aren't really terribly concerned about talking openly about it now anymore." Other findings in the broad-ranging study show that Canadians' attitudes toward cannabis have shifted significantly since legalization and many people are now in favour of legal marijuana as well as products such as edibles and consumption of the drug in public settings like restaurants. The study found that 78 per cent of Canadians are now strongly in favour of legalization, up from roughly half of the country in a previous survey released in 2019. Nearly 60 per cent of Canadians now procure their cannabis solely from legal sources, nearly double the 38 per cent of people who said they did two years ago. And about 32 per cent of survey respondents state that they consumed more cannabis over the past year than they used to. 14 per cent directly attributed their increased consumption to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led more people to use a variety of recreational substances as potential coping mechanisms.
"For me that says that Canadians have accepted the fact that cannabis is legal and now they want to have it convenient to get," said Sterling in a phone interview. "All of this nonsense that we kind of anticipated when legalization took place hasn't happened. So let's move on with our lives and let's normalize it. I think that's the message that we're getting." Cannabis-infused edible products were also given a spotlight in the study, with one-quarter of survey respondents claiming it is their preferred method of consumption and 14 per cent of Canadians expected to increase their usage of that item. Candies or gummies were the overwhelming preferred option of all edibles, with 35 per cent of consumers picking that product, while just four per cent of respondents picked beverages. Meanwhile, infusing cannabis into one's home cooking is emerging as a popular option for consumption, although it generally remains a mystery to most Canadians, the study found. More than 18 per cent of respondents said they feel comfortable cooking with cannabis, while just over one-quarter would be willing to order a cannabis-infused dish at a restaurant. Of those restaurant orders, about 21 per cent of respondents would prefer to take out their infused orders, while a similar amount would prefer a specialty cannabis food establishment. While the laws restrict Canadian restaurants from offering dishes containing cannabis and public consumption is still being mulled by several provinces, Sterling thinks that allowing pot meals to flourish will help generate some extra revenue for some foodservice outlets, which have already been badly hit during the pandemic. "With cannabis cooking at home, I think that that's still got a long ways to go," Sterling said. "But going out to a restaurant and ordering something that's got cannabis in it is something that I really think could be accelerated. There feels like a pent-up demand for that offering." The Dalhousie study was conducted over ten days in May 2021, and surveyed 1,047 people across Canada, in both English and French.
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