totalled a whopping 1,000! Now, this number is over 16,000! Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that translated into 520,855 kilograms of dried cannabis and 183 litres of cannabis oil… in 2017! Although numbers for 2018 haven’t been released, I would gather these numbers would be significantly higher now. According to Maximilian Plenert, a regularly invited expert in medical cannabis by the German Bundestag, the future realistic medical cannabis market is estimated to be approximately 175,000 patients. An excellent synopsis of his reasoning is provided for in Marijuana.com article entitled “The Long Wait for Medical Cannabis in Germany” and explains that:
“The quantity of cannabis, which a patient received on average per day, was four grams in 2014 in Canada and is now 2.7 grams. The number of patients developed parallel to the quantity sold of cannabis. In mid-2014 it was 7,914 people in Canada and as of mid-2016 was 75,166. The proportion of patients in the population of Canada is slightly above 0.2%. In Germany, there are 0.001% of inhabitants who have a medical license so far. As a first approximation, one can transfer values to Germany. The number of inhabitants is higher (in Germany) by a factor of 2.3. This makes 175,000 patients in Germany soon, compared to Canadian circumstances.”
Germany has a liberal population that has already progressed toward alternative forms of therapy, has medical coverage to cover the cost of cannabis, and potential for high gross margins for those that intend to serve this market.
The 2018 Cannabis Price Index published by The ABCD Agency, shows that the average price paid per gram of cannabis in the top 5 cities in Germany, is about $12.87 US dollars, or $17 Canadian dollars. That compares to about $7 a gram here in Canada.
THIS, AND YES, I’M BOLD TEXTS AND CAPITAL LETTERS, IS $10 PER GRAM HIGHER. I KNOW I’M STATING THE OBVIOUS HERE. BUT YOU GET THE PICTURE. EXTREMELY HIGH MARGIN COMPARED TO SALES HERE IN CANADA.
Not only that, on the cost side for Germany, it makes Canada an affordable choice due to this strength of the euro relative to the Canadian dollar. Yes, consumption doesn’t compare, but its not exactly terrible numbers. And as noted earlier, a total of 520,855 kilograms were exported from Canada to Germany in 2017 alone. That’s pretty big!
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