The great Canadian cannabis rollout Oct. 17 produced huge numbers of buyers, surprisingly low prices and significant discrepancies in available products from province to province, a new survey shows.As well, the loose flower products of Cheech & Chong vintage proved far more popular than the oils, pills, capsules and prerolled joints that were also available, the report by Headset, a Seattle-based cannabis industry analyst, showed.Where markets opened up with “sticker shock” prices in many of the nine U.S. states — plus Washington, D.C. — that have legalized recreational cannabis use since 2012, Canadian prices were remarkably low, says Headset analyst Cooper Ashley, the company’s catalogue manager.“In many states, the prices started very high — at prices people balked at — and then came down fairly quickly,” Ashley says.“But in Canada it didn’t feel that way to me. When I was going through all the e-commerce sites there were definitely some very affordable options that would be competitive prices in any of the established U.S. markets.” Across Canada, loose flower products ranged from an average high of $11.53 per gram in Alberta to a low of $8 in Quebec.Prerolled offerings went off at a high of $15.52 per joint in B.C. and a low of $10.02 in Quebec.People who bought in bulk also paid lower prices with one gram packages of flower products costing an average $11.45, while 15-gram containers went for $8.75.In Ontario, there were about 100,000 orders placed through the online Ontario Cannabis Store in the 24 hours following legalization. Some 12,000 of those came in the first hour after the store’s 12:01 a.m. opening.And Ashley says similar, opening-day rushes were seen across the country, and in the legalized U.S. states. “In Washington, it was definitely a similar deal,” he says.“I think on day one only two stores opened up in the entire states and they had lines ...
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