Where the money goes.
Every dollar you hand over for a 10-pack in Alberta, sorted into the only three things it can be: a real cost, a tax, or what's left over afterwards.
TAX TAKE vs EVERYONE'S PROFIT COMBINED
Government collects more than twice what the producer and the shop have left once all their costs are paid — added together. It is the single largest line on the pack, and nothing about it touches the product.
The whole pack
One ring, three colours. Each colour is subdivided into its own lines — darkest is the largest.
The three things your money becomes
The same numbers on one shared scale — the whole pack is 100%. Easier than a pie for comparing the three against each other.
The costs are real
Half of what you pay is somebody actually doing something. A light that has to stay on. A pump that has to run. Rent on a room, and property tax on the building around it. A lab that has to test every lot. An accountant, an auditor, a licence, an insurer. And people who have to be paid and fed.
None of it is optional and none of it is padding. Here is what each line is really made of.
Yes, this website is in there
It's inside the overhead line, and it rounds to nothing — roughly the price of a coffee a month, most of which is the domain name. That is the entire argument for building it this way. A homepage video wouldn't have shown up as a rounding error, and it would have come out of one of the other lines.
Table view
| Line | Category | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 100.0% |
Basis. One 10 × 0.5 g pack, modelled end to end from cost of production through to the shelf. "Costs" is everything really spent to grow, roll, package, ship and sell it. "Taxes & fees" is federal excise duty plus Alberta tax and the AGLC wholesale markup. "Profit after costs" is what the licensed producer and the retailer have left once every cost above is paid, and before either of them pays income tax on it.
Shown as shares of the pack rather than dollars. These figures are Alberta. Every province sets its own wholesale markup and tax, so the split moves the moment you cross a border — in some of them the tax slice is larger than this. These are our own figures for a representative pack. Cannabis is sold only through licensed retailers to adults of legal age.