Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Alcohol and cannabis sales in Canada saw a notable increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research has found — signalling a possible "early warning" of the long-term impacts of increased substance use.
The findings, gathered by the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research (PBCAR) of McMaster University, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and the Homewood Research Institute in Guelph, Ont., show that since March 2020, monthly alcohol sales rose by an average of 5.5 per cent over expected sales, while sales of cannabis experienced a much steeper increase of close to 25 per cent.
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.
In March 2020, when lockdown-like measures were first introduced, sales of alcohol and cannabis surged by approximately 15 per cent over predictions, the research found.
The research was published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network Open.
"These results offer one of the first national perspectives on changes in alcohol and cannabis use during the pandemic," said James MacKillop, director of the PBCAR and co-author of the research, in a news release.
"These sales data give us an opportunity to quantify the pandemic's impacts on two of the most commonly used substances for the country as a whole."
MacKillop stressed that increased sales alone cannot directly conclude clinical significance or effects on public health, but may serve as an "early warning system" for more long-term impacts linked to increased substance use.
"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," he said.
The researchers say the spike parallels other consumer stockpiling of various goods as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact North America more broadly.
Alcohol sales returned to more typical levels after March 2020, but remained elevated overall. This is compared to cannabis sales, which continued to outpace expected levels more dramatically over the following 16 months.
The researchers note that the difference between increased alcohol and cannabis sales are similar to a separate study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on self-reported pandemic-induced changes in cannabis use by Canadians.
Further complicating the findings, however, is that pandemic cannabis sales follow the first 16 months after legalization.
MacKillop says that while the predictions accounted for a rapidly expanding legal market, the pandemic may have shifted cannabis consumers from illegal sales to legal, online purchasing. This, he says, contributed to the rise in legal sales seen in March 2020 compared to the more modest rise in alcohol sales.
"It's unclear whether similar patterns exist outside of Canada, but the findings indicate the value of sales data as a strategy to characterize the impacts of COVID-19 on substance use," said Jean Costello, director of evaluation at the Homewood Research Institute and a co-author of the research.
"Although the changing landscape following cannabis legalization is a critical consideration, the availability of cannabis sales data at all is a boon for researchers evaluating the pandemic's impacts."
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.