Canadian cannabis consumers spent more on legal products for the first time earlier this year, according to numbers from Statistics Canada.

The spike in legal sales over illegal comes more than two years after cannabis was federally legalized in October 2018

Canadians’ household spending on adult-use weed hit $648 million in the second quarter of this year, with medical cannabis spending reaching $155 million. The increase in adult-use sales marks a 74 per cent increase from spending during the same period in 2019.

Concurrently, Canadians’ spending on illicit cannabis experienced a drop during the second quarter of 2020, totalling $784 million — $19 million less than the combined legal adult-use and medical markets, allowing legal weed to account for 50.5 per cent of total household cannabis spending.

The cannabis cash continues to flow, with StatCan data indicating that the legal cannabis retail market is worth roughly $2.4 billion with over 1,100 licensed retailers across the country.

In June 2020, for example, Canada’s licensed cannabis industry contributed approximately $5.44 billion to the country’s GDP;  the illicit market, for its part, contributed $3.89 billion.

The pandemic has been a boon for Canada’s legal markets, with licensed pot shops declared to be essential services in many provinces.