Crowdsourcing is the latest tool Canada plans to use to assess marijuana’s role in the economy as the country gears up to legalize it for recreational use this summer. A platform to collect voluntary information on pot prices and use will be part of the Cannabis Statistics Hub that the government’s statistics agency will make available through its website, according to a notice Tuesday. A report called the Cannabis Economic Account, with data from 1961 to 2017, will be published Thursday at 8:30 a.m. from Ottawa. “The hub will also include a voluntary crowdsourcing platform to collect information on the purchase price and use of cannabis.”Statistics Canada released preliminary figures in December estimating Canadians consumed as much as $6.2 billion worth of marijuana in 2015, almost as much as they spent on wine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to full legalization of recreational use by around July, a move that’s created a surge in the share prices of producers.

Source: thestar January 24, 2018 18:22 UTC