Cannabis Black Market Dried Up in NFLD During Pandemic
Shop Owner Benefits from Legal Cannabis Sales Spike – LPC
Thomas Clarke said his business is booming, thanks to COVID. The owner of Thomas H. Clarke’s Distribution in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, NL said that cannabis black market dried up during the pandemic.
“A lot of the people who came since COVID started actually came from the black market, because their supply had dried up,” Clarke said.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation (NLC), which regulates provincial cannabis sales, said sales are up 14 per cent. Clarke said his sales are up more like 35 per cent. He was the only cannabis retail store in the province not to close at all during the pandemic. Clarke said strict physical distancing practices allowed him to stay open.
It’s good news for a man who said there was no money in legal cannabis. Last year, he told CBC news that profit margins for legal cannabis were too thin. He’s also had problems with cannabis banking services after Canadian banks seemingly bowed to US pressure.
Both the RCMP and the NLC are happy to hear that the cannabis black market dried up. Peter Murphy of the NLC hopes that with cannabis selling as low as $5 per gram, legal cannabis will remain competitive with the illegal market. That and a growing number of products will help, he said.
“I think we’ve done a decent job over the last number of months of getting the product out there,” Murphy said.
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