Alcohol and cannabis sales across Canada rose by over $2.6B during the pandemic, study suggests

Sales of alcohol and cannabis in Canada overshot predictions by over $2.6billionover the course of the pandemic, according to new research.

The research from Hamilton's McMaster University,St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamiltonand the
Homewood Research Institute waspublished Thursday in the medical journal JAMANetwork Open.

The team used Statistics Canada data to lookat alcoholand cannabis sales from March 2020 to June 2021,thencompared that information to the 16 previous months, saidJames MacKillop, director of McMaster'sPeter Boris Centre for Addictions Research.

The findings showedalcohol sales were 5.5 per cent over projectedsales, which means people bought$1.86 billion more in alcohol than predicted pre-pandemic.Cannabis sales were 25 per cent more than expected, equallingan additional$811 million.

MacKillop said the research suggeststhat as we come out of the pandemic,we should plan to deal with increased issues aroundsubstance abuse.

"We have to be careful about not going over our skis for this data," he said,"but I think it's important for planning, for resourcing."

"These sales figures give us clues into potential changes in behavioural patterns and can inform planning to address mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Those in the addictions field agree.

Leslie Buckley, chief of addictions at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, saysthe pandemic made people more stressed and isolateda "perfect storm for increasing substance use."

Call for more focus on addiction treatment

"People were spending a lot more time at home and being bored, having a blur of the weekdays and the weekend," Buckley said.

"We shouldn't let this go by us without thinking long and hard about the implications. I think this is an early warning signal, a red flag."

Ryan Kitchen, program manager at Wayside House ofHamilton, which operates a 24-bed addictions and 36-bed sober living home, isn't surprised by the new figures.

Wayside House's waitlist is usually about three months, he said. During the pandemic, the home had to cut the number of beds to abide by pandemic protocols,and thewait grew to six months.

The pandemic impact highlights why more resources need to be put into addiction treatment, he said. Wayside House is nearly back at capacity, but it's been "a long, slow process."

Cannabis sales didn't slow down

"It's really, really important to be able to cut down on wait timesand for an organization like ours to have access to a larger facility," Kitchen said.

MacKillop said the study resultsoffer "one of the first national perspectives on changes in alcohol and cannabis
use during the pandemic."

Sales of alcohol and cannabis surged about 15 per cent in March 2020, when people were stockpiling, he said. When that eased, though, cannabis sales still "dramatically" outpaced the year before.

Cannabis legalization is fairly new, and that likely contributedto some of its boom, MacKillop said, addingit could also meana worrying trend of unhealthy usage.

"Specifically for the health-care sector, I think this data is a bit of a canary in a coal mine."