Part 1 in the Mythbusters Series
As advocates for safety in the cannabis industry, we are always on the lookout for new statistics. We found many striking realities when it comes to cannabis and the effect it has on communities.
Over the next 3 posts, we’re going to lay out 3 main realities when it comes to legal cannabis.
Myth 1: legalizing cannabis will create more crime.
Reality: Canadian cannabis offenses have decreased since federal legalization in 2018.
One benefit of Canada’s federally legal system, are the neatly packaged yearly reports on policing statistics in Canada. We evaluated the reports since 2016, to highlight the true trend in cannabis offenses.
Prior to federal legalization, cannabis offenses were 100+ per 100,000 population. That’s one in every 1000 individuals. After federal legalization, cannabis offenses dropped precipitously to between 34 and 44 per 100,000 population.
Graphically, you can see the clear different that occurred between years of legalization.
As a comparison, all other drug offenses in Canada have actually seen a steady rise over the same period of time.
The data clearly shows that crime has not increased since legalization.
Stay tuned for part 2!
*All data was obtained from Statistics Canada “police-reported crime statistics in Canada” from 2017 to 2021.
