Matt Maurer speaks to Global News on the impact of grey market cannabis sellers deeply undercutting the legal market

Online grey market cannabis sellers are competing with the legal market by undercutting it and offering deep volume discounts, data released by Statistics Canada shows.

Sellers in the legal market ask about $10 a gram, on average, and rarely offer discounts of any kind.

StatsCan’s survey of grey-market mail-order marijuana sites showed that very small purchases, under two grams, were in line with the legal market at about $10.

But the more a customer was willing to buy, the more prices fell: at 28 grams or more, the sites charged $5.86 a gram in the third quarter of this year.  In late 2018, they were charging $4.83.

Apart from the illegality, there are disadvantages to dealing with mail-order sites. Customers have no legal recourse if they feel ripped off, for one thing.

“Courts will not enforce illegal contracts, and a contract for the purchase and sale of illegal products is, by definition, an illegal contract,” cannabis lawyer Matt Maurer wrote in an e-mail.

This article originally appeared on Global News. Visit Global News online to read the complete article.