Canada has destroyed more than 1,700 tonnes of Weed since legalization
Canada has seen a year-over-year increase in the amount of unpackaged cannabis that's destroyed.
While Canadians smoked a lot of weed last year, we destroyed a bunch of it too.
More than 600 tonnes of cannabis was trashed after being mixed with manure and cat litter in 2022, the weight equivalent of three blue whales, the world's heaviest mammal.
The weed, contrary to how some might prefer to consume it, wasn't burned, and instead needed to be made inconsumable in line with federal regulations by mixing it with manure.
The destruction of cannabis is "a part of normal business practices within the licensed cannabis industry," Tammy Jarbeau, a spokesperson for Health Canada told the Star. But, cannabis industry experts say the mass-trashing of weed is also indicative of the state of Canada's heavily regulated cannabis industry five years after legalization.
Year after year, according to Health Canada data provided to the Star, the quantity of dried cannabis that's been destroyed in Canada has been on the rise.
Cannabis producers and sellers in 2023 were on pace for a slight decrease at only 530 tonnes destroyed versus 2022's record-setting trashing of 612 tonnes.
Here's what we know about why so much weed is being thrown out each year.
What happens to unsold weed?
Licensed Canadian cannabis producers have destroyed nearly 1,700 tonnes, the equivalent of about 89 TTC buses, since legalization five years ago, according to Health Canada's statistics. That comes as Canadian household spending on cannabis crossed the $1.5 billion mark in the third quarter of 2023, with nearly three million Canadians self-reporting cannabis use by the end of 2020.
Cannabis use throughout the country has only grown, so why is so much being destroyed?
Most destroyed cannabis includes unusable plant material, like the stalks of cannabis plants, recalled products, or unsold and returned products, according to Jarbeau and the marked increase in the reported quantity of cannabis destroyed reflects the growing number of the federal licence holders.
Who destroys the cannabis?
Licensed cannabis sellers, producers, middlemen — anyone in the supply chain that handles cannabis products will handle cannabis destruction.
There are strict regulations on how cannabis has to be destroyed, according to Kori Ainsworth, the vice-president of the cannabis packaging company Cannabis Co-Pack.
While destroying cannabis might conjure images of mountains of weed in a metal trash can set ablaze, that probably wouldn't comply with federal, provincial or municipal environmental regulations, Ainsworth said, let alone Health Canada regulations for cannabis destruction.
The actual process is much less fun and destructive. Government guidelines requires any destroyed cannabis to be "denatured" — often through the use of either manure or cat litter, to ensure any desperate smokers can't consume destroyed weed and that any live plants can't propagate, Ainsworth said.
Why is so much weed being destroyed?
The record-breaking amount of cannabis being destroyed is also a significant portion of the weed grown in Canada. In 2022, the 612 tonnes of destroyed, unpackaged, dried cannabis represented more than a sixth of all unpackaged dried weed produced that year.
In 2018, Ainsworth explained, at the dawn of cannabis legalization, Health Canada was dead set on licensing and cultivating to meet expected supply and establish a legal supply chain. But, Ainsworth expanded, "unfortunately, the supply chain and the consumer demand did not match the quantity of cannabis that was initially cultivated and produced."
"So what we saw was a large amount of cannabis being cultivated," Ainsworth continued, "without a continuous path to get into a consumer packaged goods."
And with nowhere for all that cannabis to go, "like dried old spices sitting in your spice rack," that weed became stale, Ainsworth added, leading to its destruction.
