One year after legalization, Yukon's cannabis regime is mostly chill

A year after recreational cannabis became legal across the country, one thing is clear: society isn't collapsing—at least not because people are smoking legal joints.

In the Yukon, the territorial government's phased rollout has gone more or less according to plan.

Cannabis Yukon's store, tucked away in an unassuming industrial section of Whitehorse, saw huge lineups its first day, but closed with minimal fanfare yesterday.

That means brick-and-mortar retail is now fully in the hands of the private sector, with two stores open in Whitehorse and one in Dawson City. Another store in Carmacks is approved, but hasn't opened yet. And the government will continue to offer online sales. 

"The team at Cannabis Yukon has helped displace the illicit market while providing detailed product and health information to help Yukoners make informed decisions and engage in responsible consumption," said John Streicker, the minister responsible for the cannabis file, in the legislative assembly Thursday.

"Responsible consumption" might not sound like a lit party, but the government has always had to balance competing interests in a very new area of public administration: health, safety, personal freedom and the bureaucracy.

The job should get easier from here on out. Streicker said the government does not need to bring in new regulations to cover the sale of edibles and extracts, which will hit the market some time in December.

Supply and demand

And even though the government is no longer in the business of storefront sales, it remains the sole wholesaler of pot in the territory. Cannabis Yukon alone can reach supply agreements with growers. Streicker said that's part of the reason Yukon avoided the supply shortfalls that plagued some markets last October.

But it's also a sore spot with retailers and consumers, some of whom have complained about the lack of selection.

Jordi Mikeli-Jones, who co-owns Triple J's Canna Space in Whitehorse, said her business still struggles to get enough inventory through the government.

"It would be a dream for us to be able to work with [suppliers] directly," she said. "We realize that that's not going to happen, it's not the model that's set up, but we would like to influence the products that are coming into our shop and we're just not there yet."

She said having licensed growers in Yukon would help. That's something the government has said it wants to encourage, so far without success.

'A good job'

Still, the Yukon's opposition parties offered a bit of praise this week on the government's handling of legalization, with NDP MLA Liz Hanson going so far as to say the government "has done a good job."

Hanson said she wants more information about how much success the government has had disrupting the black market.

"A driving force around the legalization of cannabis was to eliminate the illicit market as well as normalize and decriminalize as a substance that is enjoyed by many Canadians," Hanson said, pressing Streicker for detailed Yukon figures.

"However, it is estimated that half of Canadians who buy cannabis are still purchasing their grass from the illicit market." 

Streicker pointed to figures he tabled in the legislature last spring, that suggested the "market penetration" of legal sales in the first six months of legalization was 25 to 30 per cent. He said more recent figures show the government has sold the equivalent of 338 kilograms of cannabis, bringing in $4.6 million.

Total estimated consumption is around 1,000 kg, though the minister cautioned it's difficult to get a full picture of the black market seeing as it's, you know, illegal.

Meanwhile, the Yukon Party, which has suggested the government did not need to open a retail store at all contends the government may have lost as much as $1.1 million operating its store. This week Kluane MLA Wade Istchenko said that's the best guess he can come up with using available figures.

"We've asked the Premier this question and he has refused to answer," he said. "We submitted an [Access to information] request seeking this information and it was completely redacted."

That's just, like, your opinion, man

Streicker, who disputes that the Yukon Party has asked about this in the house, said the government still tallying the store's books. And he said the government is still in the process of liquidating the store's assets, meaning there's more money to come in.

The government's goal was for the store to break even and it looks like it's close, Streicker said.

Despite these questions, life post-legalization is pretty much the same as before. Yukoners remain big fans of cannabis, posting the highest rate of monthly legal pot sales in the country at $9.17 per capita, per Statistics Canada, a rate more than six times the national average.

That demand won't go away and as more stores open across the territory, it seems likely, at least on an intuitive level, that those sales should continue to eat into the illegal market.

But the fact that politicians are arguing about wholesale figures and administrative details shows how normal, even boring, legal cannabis has become.