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The United States might be in for the same surprise when it legalizes the use of recreational marijuana or cannabis in the future.

Just two days after it legalized the sale and personal use of recreational marijuana on Oct. 17, Canada has found itself suffering from a shortage of the commodity. Canadian cannabis producers and stores apparently underestimated the huge surge in demand for cannabis following its legalization.

Under the new law, Canadian citizens will be allowed to carry up to 30 grams of cannabis in public and each household will be able to grow up to four marijuana plants.

Statistics Canada, the country’s national statistics agency, estimated that 5.4 million Canadians will buy cannabis from legal dispensaries in 2018. That’s about 15 percent of the population. In addition, some 4.9 million Canadians already smoke weed. These projections included a boost from legalization but were still off the mark due to the high demand for cannabis.

Bill Blair, who led the government’s cannabis legalization program, said the country is unable to supply enough to meet demand. He said the government expected “certain strains might run out and there would be a bit of a run on supply.”

Cannabis supply began running low on Oct. 19. The supply dearth saw retailers are turning people away because they’d run out of stock.

The Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation, the sole legal retailer of recreational cannabis in the province of Ontario, said some cannabis items are unavailable on its website. It said given the scarcity of cannabis products across Canada, it expects “significant” short-term supply problems.

Cannabis retailers in Alberta and Prince Edward Island said certain cannabis products quickly sold out online after vigorous business on their cannabis sales websites on the first day of legalization. Experts said the supply shortage situation is the same across Canada.

Experts said the shortage of cannabis brings with it the risk Canada might soon run out of practically its entire inventory of cannabis products. The situation is due to supply and demand with many users stocking-up due to worries there might not be enough stock in the stores over the next few weeks.

Cannabis demand is under threat because supply didn’t ramp up to meet demand, said marijuana advocate Steven Stairs. He expects the government to step in and try to ensure supply by mitigating regulation and taxation.

The Cannabis Commerce Association of Canada said most of the cannabis produced in Canada right now doesn’t come from the black market but rather from medically licensed growers, or the grey market. These licensed growers weren’t able to ramp-up production in time to meet demand because weed wasn’t legal at the time so there was no sense in boosting production.

Growers also held off on planting more weed because licenses allowing them to do so weren’t available before Oct. 17. Those who applied on Oct. 17 are still waiting for their applications to be processed.

Source: http://en.businesstimes.cn/articles/104225/20181022/canada-running-short-marijuana-legalization.htm