British Columbia

This is how much legal pot you can take on domestic flights

Travellers flying within Canada will be allowed to pack as much as 30 grams of cannabis. This what that looks like.

Travellers flying within Canada will be allowed to pack as much as 30 grams of cannabis

Jett Hansell, regional manager at Weeds, can barely hold 30 grams of loose cannabis buds in her two hands. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

Travellers flying within Canada will be allowed to pack 30 grams of cannabis once legalization begins Oct. 17, transportation minister Marc Garneau announced Tuesday.

According to Jett Hansell, the regional manager at Weeds, a chain of cannabis dispensaries, that's not a small stash.

"I expected it to be a lot more strict, so 30 grams is awesome," said Hansell on Wednesday.

She said a lot of people roll joints using roughly half a gram of cannabis, so it would take about 60 joints to hit the limit.

To demonstrate what that looks like, Hansell pulled out about 60 to 75 pre-rolled joints and loaded it into her hands. She could barely hold it all, and required assistance to pile the joints, which kept falling between her fingers.

According to Jett Hansell, regional manager of the cannabis dispensary chain Weeds, this is roughly 30 grams of cannabis rolled into half-gram joints. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

When it comes to loose cannabis buds, the pile is even bigger. Hansell, again, struggled to contain the quantity in both hands.

She said that the strain used for demonstration was an Indica, called Purple OG. She said the shop wasn't planning to sell the buds because they had dried out a bit — meaning the 30-gram pile appeared a little bigger than it otherwise might have.

In terms of how long 30 grams would last, it varies wildly.

"It depends on the person — how much they want to smoke a day — how long that will last them," said Hansell, adding that many of her regular customers will smoke about a gram, or two to three joints a day.

She said heavy users will consume more like five to seven joints a day.

"It depends on your nature of travel, too. If you are on vacation, obviously, you might be smoking a little bit more or less, but I would always go for more — like, you want to be safe rather than sorry," said Hansell. 

"I'd go for two weeks, max, with that stash."


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rafferty Baker

Video journalist

Rafferty Baker is a video journalist with CBC News, based in Vancouver, as well as a writer and producer of the CBC podcast series, Pressure Cooker. You can find his stories on CBC Radio, television, and online at cbc.ca/bc.