Crime levels near federally legal cannabis stores in two Canadian cities

Abstract

When the Canadian government legalized recreational cannabis in 2018, one stated goal was to reduce cannabis-related crime. Conversely, some residents worried that allowing cannabis stores would instead trigger more crime nearby. This study tested whether police-reported crime levels changed in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Ottawa after the first group of licensed stores opened in April 2019. The data included incidents of one type of personal crime and four types of property crime from January 2018 until February 2020, i.e., the last 15 months before stores began operating and the first 11 months afterward. Geographic information system software identified crimes that occurred within 3000 meters of the initial eight licensed stores and divided them into four distance categories. Fixed effect panel data regressions of comparative interrupted time series models then tested whether monthly crime levels changed in regions nearer to stores, relative to their past trends and to more distant regions. During the period studied, police reported 31,095 crimes within 3000 meters of stores. Monthly levels were slightly higher after April 2019 than before. That increase showed significant associations with warmer winter weather and pre-existing trends, but not with cannabis store proximity. These results were robust with respect to several alternative analyses. Overall, the study found no significant associations between crime levels and legal cannabis store openings in these cities.