Question:
A student is doing some research on cannabis waste from licensed producers in Canada and is looking for current statistics on the quantities of waste being generated at all licensed producer facilities in Canada.
The student contacted STC and was told that “The data you are requesting is not available on our website as a standard product” with the suggestion to contact the DlI contact.
The national Cannabis Tracking System (CTS) seems to account for waste so we are wondering if it might be something that could be obtained via custom tab from StatsCan…or would we have to contact Health Canada directly?
Answer:
We were passed along the following response from subject matter:
The data we’re collecting on a monthly basis is from municipal wastewater treatment plants (15 of them) in five cities (Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Halifax). The plants treat water from all sources: residential, commercial, and industrial. With respect to cannabis, we are analyzing wastewater samples (at the entry of the wastewater treatment plant) for cannabis metabolites. In other words, we are only looking at cannabis once it has been consumed by a person, since the intent is to measure cannabis consumption. In particular, we focused on the metabolite since we did not want to have consumption numbers “contaminated” by raw cannabis or unused product that was disposed of in the sewer system.
This data is being collected directly by Statistics Canada, with the assistance of participating cities and a laboratory. As of now, data are not being made available at the wastewater treatment plant level.
