The vast majority of cannabis purchases in Canada continue to come from legal sources, according to Health Canada’s annual cannabis survey.

The amount commonly spent per month on cannabis decreased from $73 in 2018 to $63 in 2024 but was unchanged from 2023.

The 2024 Canadian Cannabis Survey highlights ongoing trends among cannabis consumers in the country, documenting not only sources of cannabis but also topics such as consumption habits and perceptions of cannabis risks. 

Smoking cannabis remains the most common way Canadians consume the product, but the proportion who report smoking cannabis has declined by twenty percentage points since legalization began. 

In 2018, 89% of cannabis consumers reported smoking cannabis, a number that has declined to 69% in the last two years of the federal government’s annual Canadian Cannabis Survey.

Eating cannabis products was the second most common mode of consumption (57%, up from 43% in 2018) according to data collected from April 4 to July 2, 2024, while vaporizing (including vaping dried cannabis and/or liquid or solid cannabis extracts) accounted for 37% of reported consumption. 

The number of people who reported getting their cannabis from a legal source in the first half of 2024 remained the same as the previous year at about 72%, up from just 37% in 2019. 

Only 3% of respondents in the survey reported getting their cannabis from an illegal source, while 15% said they obtained their cannabis from a social source like a friend or family member, and 2% reported getting their cannabis from a storefront located in a First Nations community. Such stores generally operate outside the scope of provincial licensing regimes and have proliferated in recent years. 

Those who reported using cannabis at least once in the previous 12 months increased from 22% in 2018 to 26% in 2024, but this number was unchanged from 26% in 2023. Similarly, those who reported using cannabis at least once in the past 30 days increased slightly from 15% in 2018 to 17% in 2024 but was unchanged from 17% in 2023.

Only 6% of the population in Canada reported using cannabis on a daily or almost daily basis, up slightly from 5% in 2018 but unchanged from 6% in 2023. These daily or nearly-daily users represented 24% of all people in Canada who reported consuming cannabis in the past 12 months, relatively unchanged from 25% in 2018 and 23% in 2023.         

The number of people who reported using cannabis before driving (18%) increased slightly from the year prior (15% in 2023) but is still lower than the 27% who reported doing so in 2018. This included 16% who reported driving within 2 hours of smoking or vapourizing cannabis and 10% who reported driving within 4 hours of ingesting cannabis.

Of those who reported using cannabis in the past 12 months, 78% said they believe that cannabis use impairs one’s ability to drive, while 13% responded that it depends, and 6% responded that it did not impair one’s ability to drive.

Recent figures from the Canadian Community Health Survey released in October showed that the population of those over 18 in Canada who reported using cannabis in the past 12 months and those who reported that they had used cannabis daily or almost daily in the past 12 months declined in 2023 after four years of annual growth.

Cannabis sales in Canada also appear to reflect these self-reported figures, with sales beginning to level out after five years of year-over-year growth. 

The Canadian Cannabis Survey was launched in 2017 and has been conducted annually since 2018 to create a better understanding of cannabis use and consumption habits in Canada in the wake of the legalization of non-medical cannabis in October 2018.

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