Finance, Operations, and Information Systems
http://hdl.handle.net/10464/6819
2024-03-18T17:11:54ZRelationships between sales of legal medical cannabis and alcohol in Canada
http://hdl.handle.net/10464/17045
Relationships between sales of legal medical cannabis and alcohol in Canada
Armstrong, Michael J.
The extent to which legalizing cannabis use might lead to increased or decreased alcohol use has important implications for public health, economic growth, and government policy. This study analyzed Canada’s monthly per capita sales of alcohol and legal medical cannabis using fixed effect panel data linear regressions. The data covered seven Canadian regions from January 2011 to September 2018, and controlled for changing levels of retail activity, alcohol prices, tertiary education, unemployment, and impaired driving penalties. The analysis estimated that each dollar of legal medical cannabis sold was associated with an average alcohol sales decrease of roughly $0.74 to $0.84. This suggests that medical cannabis was an economic substitute for alcohol in Canada, and that the country’s 2017-2018 alcohol sales were roughly 1.8% lower than they would have been without legal medical cannabis. The results therefore indirectly imply that reduced alcohol consumption might have partly offset cannabis legalization’s health and economic impacts.
2022-11-01T00:00:00ZInterrupted time series analysis of Canadian legal cannabis sales during the COVID‐19 pandemic
http://hdl.handle.net/10464/15674
Interrupted time series analysis of Canadian legal cannabis sales during the COVID‐19 pandemic
Armstrong, Michael J.; Cantor, Nathan; Smith, Brendan T.; Jesseman, Rebecca; Hobin, Erin; Myran, Daniel T.
Introduction: There were repeated reports of increased cannabis sales, use, and health impacts in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it was unclear whether the increases were due to pandemic effects or industry expansion.
Methods: We performed interrupted time series regressions of monthly per capita legal cannabis sales from March 2019 to February 2021, first with national averages, then with provincial/territorial data after adjusting for store density. We considered two interruption alternatives: January 2020, when product variety increased; and March 2020, when pandemic restrictions began.
Results: The provincial/territorial regression with the January interruption explained R2 = 69.6% of within-jurisdiction variation: baseline monthly per capita sales growth averaged $0.21 (95% CI: 0.15, 0.26), sales immediately dropped in January by $1.02 (95% CI: -1.67, -0.37), and monthly growth thereafter increased by $0.16 (95% CI: 0.06, 0.25). With the March interruption, the regression instead explained 68.7% of variation: baseline sales growth averaged $0.14 (95% CI: 0.06, 0.22), there was no immediate drop, and growth thereafter increased by $0.22 per month, (95% CI: 0.08, 0.35).
Discussion: Increasing cannabis sales during the pandemic was consistent with pre-existing trends and increasing store numbers. The extra increased growth was more aligned with January’s new product arrivals than with March’s pandemic measures, though the latter cannot be ruled out.
Conclusions: We found little evidence of pandemic impacts on Canada’s aggregate legal cannabis sales. We therefore caution against attributing increased population-level cannabis use or health impacts primarily to the pandemic.
2022-03-22T00:00:00ZRelationships between increases in Canadian cannabis stores, sales, and prevalence
http://hdl.handle.net/10464/15215
Relationships between increases in Canadian cannabis stores, sales, and prevalence
Armstrong, Michael J.
Background: This study estimated the relationships between increases in legal cannabis stores, legal cannabis sales, and cannabis prevalence in Canadian provinces between 2018 and 2020. Method: Government data were used to calculate changes in licensed store numbers, retail sales dollars, and past-three-month users in 10 provinces across six time periods. The resulting N = 60 observations were standardized per million residents aged 15 and up, and then analyzed via linear regression. Results: Store growth explained 46.3% of the variation in provincial sales growth; each added store was associated with added quarterly sales of $305 (95% CI: $208 to $402) thousand. By contrast, store growth explained only 7.7% of the variation in provincial user growth; each added store was associated with 696 (95% CI: 58 to 1334) added users. Conclusion: From 2018 to 2020, Canada’s rapid cannabis retail expansion was strongly related to legal sales growth but only weakly related to prevalence growth. This implies prevalence growth during that period was related more to legalization’s other aspects and/or to the continuation of already-existing trends.
2021-09-22T00:00:00ZCanada’s provinces and territories should disclose cannabis data to support research
http://hdl.handle.net/10464/15061
Canada’s provinces and territories should disclose cannabis data to support research
Armstrong, Michael
Despite cannabis legalization’s many potential impacts on Canadian society, provincial governments have disclosed few details about their recreational sales. Detailed proactive data disclosure, like that done in Colorado and Washington state, helps researchers understand legalization’s impacts and suggest regulatory improvements. To ensure Canada’s upcoming regulatory review is evidence-based, provinces must at least start monthly publication of the recreational cannabis sales data they already collect.
Peer-reviewed commentary article
2021-03-08T00:00:00Z