While the federal Liberal government continues to work towards the legalization of recreational cannabis, the number of Canadians with prescriptions for medicinal use has tripled in the past year.
At the end of September, roughly 100,000 Canadians had obtained prescriptions and registered to buy cannabis from an approved grower, according to Health Canada statistics.
This is a whopping increase from the 30,537 people who were registered in September 2015.
A total of 4,7773 kilos of dried cannabis were sold to patients between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year compared to 1,873 over the same period the previous year.
The increase coincides with the switch in 2014 from a system dominated by patients growing their own supply to the introduction of large commercial grow-ops that sell cannabis by mail.