Weed Week: Statisticians have figured out who’s smoking the most pot in Canada

When it comes to regulation of the cannabis industry, Canada is a step (or two) ahead of most other advanced economies.

It’s the only jurisdiction where THC is legalised at the federal level, which mean consumption statistics from the region carry some extra weight.

As it turns out, Canada’s stats agency has utilised an unusual technique to build out some tracking data; sewerage analysis.

The project covered 14 wastewater treatment plants in five urban centres; Central Halifax, Montreal Island, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver.

The analysts checked the wastewater for traces of THC-COOH, which is the byproduct produced by the human body when THC is consumed.

Based on the data, Halifax residents were deemed to have the highest level of cannabis residue in their urine, followed by Montreal.

But Statistics Canada said it was too early to determine whether overall consumption had increased since recreational cannabis was legalised in October 2018.

Meanwhile, the latest monthly data is in for pot stock performance across the world — and the results weren’t pretty.

As a relatively high-risk sector that’s probably to be expected, given August was a pretty rocky month for global share markets.

And pot stocks weren’t immune, with the Global Cannabis Stock index losing another 12.6 per cent to fall to a reading of 63.40.

That followed a 13.8 per cent fall in July as some heat comes out of the broader sector following a bullish start to the year.

The last week of August also saw a lot of ASX-listed pot stocks report their full-year or half-year financial results, as June reporting season drew to a close.

Here’s how Aussie pot stocks performed last week

It was another rough week for Elixinol Global (ASX:EXL), which was one of four companies globally to fall by more than 30 per cent in August.

The stock fell by 10 per cent last week, coinciding with the release of Elixonol’s full-year results which showed full-year revenue rose 19 per cent to $18.3m.

And the announcement of a new distribution agreement in Europe by the company’s European subsidiary wasn’t enough to get shareholders excited. Elixonal is still up by almost 50 per cent over the last 12 months though.

CropLogic (ASX:CLI) fell by 18 per cent on some corporate news, as the company announced that around 34m shares would be released from escrow on September 12. It also has some extra cash after satisfying conditions to draw down on a $2.24m bridging loan.

IDT Australia (ASX:IDT) says it’s now in the clear with US regulators, after the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) removed a Warning Letter against the company following an “evaluation of corrective actions undertaken” by the firm.

And despite a rough month for the cannabis sector, medicinal pot stock BOD Australia (ASX:BDA) was all smiles; the company said 329 prescriptions for its MediCabilis product were dispensed in August, an increase of 95 per cent from the previous month.

Below is Stockhead’s latest summary of weekly and annual price performance for ASX-listed property stocks.

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