A Cannabis Economic Account – the Framework

Given the fact that significant non-medical use currently exists in Canada it is incumbent upon the agency to try to measure the production, sale and use pre-legalization—despite the obvious difficulties of doing so—as well as post-legalization in order to provide Canadians, governments and businesses with as clear a picture as possible of the economic and social consequences of the legalization. [...] This information is available from the health surveys mentioned and has been used by the Parliamentary Budget Office to estimate illegal cannabis consumption.3, 4 To turn the prevalence into an estimate of the volume of cannabis consumed an estimate of the amount of cannabis consumed during a typical consumption episode is required. [...] The relationship between the supply of cannabis and the use of cannabis is illustrated in Figure 1 where the goal is to determine the supply of non-medical cannabis in the Canadian market along with the use. [...] The value added related to non-medical cannabis can therefore be seen loosely as the value of the cannabis sold less the costs of the inputs. [...] Gross value added represents the contribution of labour and capital services to the total value of the cannabis produced as distinct from the value of purchased inputs which are, of course, the value added of producers of products other than cannabis.