Canadian Cannabis Use Changes: 2020 Compared to 2018

In April 2021, Statistics Canada released a health report “Looking back from 2020, how cannabis use and related behaviours changed in Canada.” The report data compares the first year after legalization (October 17, 2018) with subsequent years 2019 and 2020. Report data was derived from the voluntary “National Cannabis Survey” which targeted Canadians 15 years of age or older, excluding residents of institutions, those experiencing homelessness, residents of the territories and people living on indigenous reserves. 16,467 people responded to the survey.

Key Results

• By the end of 2020, 20% of respondents reported using cannabis in the past three months. The reported usage frequency was higher than reported usage before legalization (14%) and in the few months after legalization (17.5%)
• The provinces with the highest reported cannabis usage were Nova Scotia (27.3%), BC (24.8%), and Ontario (23.1%).
• 3% of females reported using dried cannabis flower in 2020, compared to 73.5% in 2018. In 2020, 42.5% of female respondents reported using edibles, compared to 28% in 2018. Edibles became legal in October of 2019.
• In 2020, 68.4% of survey respondents reported obtaining at least some of the cannabis they consume from a legal source. This rate is nearly three times more than before legalization in 2018 (22.9%), and also higher than just after legalization in 2019 (47.4%).
• In 2020, approximately one-third (35.4%) of respondents reported obtaining at least some of their cannabis from an illegal supplier, while 28.6% obtained cannabis or shared it with family and friends, compared to 51.3% and 47% respectively in 2018.

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