Research paperEstimating the economic value of British Columbia's domestic cannabis market: Implications for provincial cannabis policy
Section snippets
Background
British Columbia (BC), Canada is well-known as the site of a large illegal cannabis industry (Easton, 2004, Hamilton, 2004). The proliferation of this industry has prompted widespread concern related to illegal indoor cannabis “grow ops” as well as the increasing involvement of violent organized crime groups (Hamilton, 2004, RCMP, 2009). While local police agencies continue to allocate substantial public resources towards fighting cannabis cultivation and related activity, recent data from the
Monte Carlo methods
Monte Carlo simulation methods were employed to produce annual retail expenditure estimates of locally consumed cannabis in BC, as well as estimates of the total amount of cannabis consumed. In brief, these methods allow for repeated random sampling based on estimated parameter distributions to derive point estimates and likely ranges (i.e., credibility intervals) for the outcome of interest. Parameter estimates are applied to the model, and inputs are generated randomly from corresponding
Parameter estimates
The parameter estimates entered into the model are presented in Table 1, along with corresponding data sources. As shown, the combined estimates from the 2009 CADUMS and the 2009 Youth Smoking Survey resulted in an estimate of the number of cannabis users in 2009 in BC of 366,032. Of those, 76,917 (21%) were estimated to be daily users, 99,888 (27%) were estimated to be weekly users, 83,645 (23%) were estimated to be monthly users, and 105,582 (29%) were estimated to use cannabis less than
Discussion
In an econometric model estimating annual retail expenditures on cannabis in British Columbia, with parameter estimates derived from government-funded data sources, it was conservatively estimated that approximately $407 million is spent by British Columbians on cannabis at the retail level per year. The bulk of this estimated revenue was generated by adult daily cannabis users, who contributed to over 90% of all potential revenue from provincial cannabis sales. Assuming under-reporting of
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Tim Stockwell and the BC Alcohol and Other Drug Use Monitoring Survey study group for use of their data, as well as the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact for use of the Canadian Youth Smoking Survey data. We would also like to thank Peter Vann and Deborah Graham for their research and administrative assistance. Dan Werb is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Trudeau Foundation. Thomas Kerr is supported by the Michael Smith
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