Cannabis sales and possession has been legal in Canada for, what, 6 years or so. You only need to be of a certain minimum age and pay the excise duty (and find a way to dispose of the extreme packaging).
The black market now accounts for only about 60% of the cannabis sales. Hard drug use like crack and fentanyl has become rampant as dealers lace their product to compete on a kick level (the legal stuff is relatively mild).
There's currently a shakeout and consolidation in the legal cannabis industry going on due to overinvestment. The mom-and-pop storefronts that cropped up on seemingly every street corner during the pandemic are starting to disappear. Regulatory charges and overhead eat much of the profit. There is still trouble getting financing for the legal industry because of US legislation preventing banks that do business in that country from lending money to such businessess outside of the USA, legal or not. Black market dealers do not have any of these issues.
The black market now accounts for only about 60% of the cannabis sales. Hard drug use like crack and fentanyl has become rampant as dealers lace their product to compete on a kick level (the legal stuff is relatively mild).
There's currently a shakeout and consolidation in the legal cannabis industry going on due to overinvestment. The mom-and-pop storefronts that cropped up on seemingly every street corner during the pandemic are starting to disappear. Regulatory charges and overhead eat much of the profit. There is still trouble getting financing for the legal industry because of US legislation preventing banks that do business in that country from lending money to such businessess outside of the USA, legal or not. Black market dealers do not have any of these issues.