While Canada’s House of Commons is hashing out the details of legalization, stakeholders have been trying to determine how many recreational cannabis consumers will participate in the legal market and now there’s a new report to help them.

On Sept. 7, 2017, Oraclepoll Research, in partnership with Colin Firth, a marketing executive and cannabis industry consultant, released “Canadian Cannabis Report: What’s The Buzz?”

The report found that 57% of Canadians support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to legalize cannabis, but of most importance to stakeholders is the report’s finding that 39% of Canadian adults, or 11.5 million adults, will become recreational cannabis consumers once legalization commences in July 2018.

Oraclepoll’s projection is close to Deloitte’s projection, which estimated that nearly 40% of Canadians will become recreational cannabis consumers.

In regards to buying habits, Oraclepoll’s report found that 63% of Canadians would prefer to visit a retail store to purchase cannabis instead of shopping for cannabis online.

Having asked 5,000 Canadian adults 75 cannabis-related questions on medical and recreational cannabis, current and expected consumption habits and overall market opinions, the report addresses an array of stakeholder questions.

“We recognized a significant lack of data for this emerging industry. To date, there has not been a study of this magnitude of the Canadian people’s thoughts of the cannabis industry - both on the medical and recreational fronts,” Firth said in a press release. “We saw this not just as an opportunity to better understand the Canadian cannabis consumer, or Canadians as a whole, but to help ensure that as a country, we’re all prepared for 2018’s pending legalization.”