Features

Toronto earns ‘Big Smoke’ title as Canada’s biggest cannabis toker

Published on August 11, 2023 by David Wylie

Photo: Adobe stock/the oz.

Three Canadian cities are on top of the world when it comes to how much cannabis they consume.

The 2023 Cannabis Global Price Index used data from 140 cities worldwide—both legal and not—then ranked them in a number of categories.

“Cannabis consumption figures were collected from WHO (World Health Organization) for countries around the world,” says the CFAH, which is behind the study.

Toronto (No. 7), Montreal (No. 13), and Vancouver (No. 16) broke the top 20 cities in terms of annual pot use. Those in the Big Smoke consumed 16.7 metric tons—roughly the weight of three male African elephants. Montrealers came in at 11 metric tons, and Vancouverites at 7.9.

The top city was New York at 62.3 metric tons—about the weight of a Boeing 737—followed by Sydney, Australia; Los Angeles; Chicago; and Rome, Italy.

“We examined the top and bottom cannabis-consuming nations to choose the study cities,” say the authors.

Among the surprising information, Brandon, Man., out-smoked Calgary. The small Prairie community in the heart of Mennonite country managed to consume 5.9 metric tons of weed, compared to the much more populous Calgary’s total of 2.8.

Legal weed is often cheaper

When it comes to price, Tokyo, Japan, has the highest price per gram at $33.80, more than $10 a gram more expensive than runner-up Dublin, Ireland, at $22.50.

CFAH found legalizing cannabis leads to a drop in the price of cannabis.

“Legalizing cannabis is more likely to cause a price decline in the market, with prices falling by 11.13% on average,” it says.

They also found countries with strong cannabis consumption rates are 30% more likely to have low gram prices.

The 15 cities with the highest cannabis price per gram:

Photo: Contributed/CFAH

See the 2023 Cannabis Global Price Index.