A report compiling 54 recommendations from the five-person expert panel released Thursday urged Finance Canada to consider a new model that would increase excise taxes on products with high quantities of tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabis’s psychoactive component, and lower fees on those with smaller amounts. It positioned the change as a way to move consumers away from high-THC products.
The finding came as the legal cannabis sector has faced the sobering reality that the market isn’t as big — or as easy to navigate — as predicted.Many of the industry’s biggest players, including Canopy Growth Corp., Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Tilray Brands Inc., have spent the last five years laying off workers, closing facilities and grappling with balance sheets that reflect a challenging market and a slow crawl toward profitability.
He named as priorities a review of the excise tax and another to study whether it should be applied to medical products. “This could be an effective nudge for cannabis consumers to move toward lower-risk cannabis use behaviours,” said the report. The panel said the industry felt raising the limit would help it squeeze out illicit sellers with products containing higher THC amounts and prices for edibles that can be up to 90 per cent lower than legal counterparts.Public health stakeholders, on the other hand, supported maintaining the current limit because they saw a rise in unintentional cannabis poisonings among children since legalization and were concerned the severity of these incidents would only climb with a greater THC threshold.