Access to cannabis retail stores across Canada 6 months following legalization: a descriptive study

On Oct. 17, 2018, Canada legalized recreational cannabis with the dual goals of reducing youth use and eliminating the illicit cannabis market. We examined factors associated with access to physical cannabis stores across Canada 6 months following legalization.

We extracted the address and operating hours of all legal cannabis stores in Canada from online government and private listings. We conducted a descriptive study examining the association between private/hybrid (mixture of government and private stores) and government-only retail models with 4 measures of physical access to cannabis: store density, weekly hours of operation, median distance to the nearest school and relative availability of cannabis stores between low- and high-income neighbourhoods.

Six months after legalization, there were 260 cannabis retail stores across Canada: 181 privately run stores, 55 government-run stores and 24 stores in the hybrid retail system. Compared to jurisdictions with a government-run model, jurisdictions with a private/hybrid retail model had 49% (95% confidence interval 10%-200%) more stores per capita, retailers were open on average 9.2 more hours per week, and stores were located closer to schools (median 166.7 m). In both retail models, there was over twice the concentration of cannabis stores in neighbourhoods in the lowest income quintile compared to the highest income quintile.

Marked differences in physical access to cannabis retail are emerging between jurisdictions with private/hybrid retail models and those with government-only retail models. Ongoing surveillance including monitoring differences in cannabis use and harms across jurisdictions is needed.