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Under the influence: alcohol, cannabis sales on the rise in Canada

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GLACE BAY, N.S. -

The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped the alcohol from flowing out of the taps at Big Spruce Brewery in Cape Breton.

As a matter of fact, owner Jeremy White says business has never been better.

"Things went from normal speed to very little speed to 90 miles an hour and it's kind of stayed 90 miles an hour all the way through," says White, the owner of Big Spruce Brewery.

Like many craft breweries in the Maritimes, businesses have had to change the way they sell their product, with many moving sales online.

But, as people changed the way they consumed their beverages, the pandemic, according to White, actually increased the amount of beer he sold.

"I think it certainly hasn't hindered and, at times, it has definitely helped. The first year saw incredible panic buying really in the first closure in April and May of 2020," says White.

According to new data gathered by the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at McMaster University in Ontario, alcohol and cannabis sales in Canada saw a notable increase during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If you go back to March of 2020, right when the pandemic started, just as we saw in the stores themselves, there was a big stockpiling trend in the sales data. So we saw about a 15 per cent spike in alcohol and cannabis sales right away in that March period," says James Mackillop, chair at the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research.

But after that, Mackillop says alcohol sales actually started to balance out, while cannabis buying spiked by 25 per cent.

He says while the data is good to have, it doesn't tell the whole picture.

"They don't tell us about individual person behaviour. How many people started drinking or using cannabis at problematic levels? How many people might of developed an alcohol use disorder or cannabis use disorder? And, unfortunately, they don't tell us why people were changing their behaviour."

The researchers used information from Statistics Canada to compare 16 months of alcohol and cannabis sales before and after the pandemic began — namely the 16 months before March 2020 and following through to June 2021.

Canadians bought $1.86 billion more in alcohol than expected based on pre-pandemic trends. Cannabis sales, meanwhile, were $811 million higher than predictions.

Back at Big Spruce, White says even he was surprised by the liquor splurge.

"The tell of the tape for COVID and this pandemic has been one of complete lack of predictability."

Further complicating the findings, however, is that pandemic cannabis sales follow the first 16 months after legalization.

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