A cupcake 'edible' is shown at a stall at a 'Green Market' pop-up event in Toronto on Sunday, December 18, 2016. The market sells local craft cannabis products including edibles, teas, oils and creams. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Roughly a third of Canadian cannabis users eat their weed in the form of baked goods and other food products, according to a survey conducted for Health Canada by EKOS Research Associates earlier this year.

The vast majority of users — 94 per cent — reporting smoking their cannabis. Slightly over a third consume it in food, and one fifth use vape pens.

The survey describes the potential market for legal cannabis edibles and marijuana vape products — something that politicians have deferred for a year after smoking cannabis becomes legal.

The House of Commons passed the Liberal government’s cannabis legalization bill C-45 in November, sending it off to the Senate for final review.

But that wasn’t until after the Liberals had amended the bill at committee stage to allow for the sale of edibles within a year of legalizing recreational cannabis, and ordered Health Canada to draft up regulations for sale of edibles — something the NDP wanted to see introduced immediately.

The Liberal government has stated that it wants to legalize recreational cannabis by July 2018.

The 2017 Canadian cannabis survey, posted publicly online Tuesday, sampled 9,215 Canadians over the age of 16. It said it over-sampled so the government can better understand the behaviour and beliefs of cannabis users. The survey cost $249,820.

The survey report said the polling was done to help the government “better evaluate the possible impacts associated with legalization, regulation and restriction.”

It showed that a fifth of respondents report consuming cannabis daily, while just over half of respondents said they use it up to three days per month.

A majority — 77 per cent of respondents — said they think that marijuana can be habit-forming.

Those who said they smoked in the last year typically spent $75 on cannabis for recreational use each month. The average price per unit reported for dried cannabis was $11.40 a gram.

Average cannabis prices will vary by province and territory, but at their meeting earlier this month, Canada’s finance ministers pegged the average price at about $10 a gram.

The legal minimum age for cannabis consumption is being set at 18 — which is also the average age at which Canadian pot smokers start consuming the drug recreationally, according to the Health Canada research.

The survey also examined how cannabis users view the safety of driving after consuming.

The report said 39 per cent of survey respondents who smoked in the last year said they “have driven within two hours of using cannabis.”

Of those who said they have driven a vehicle after using cannabis, “40 per cent did so within the past 30 days.”

“Males (45 per cent) were more likely to report driving within 2 hours of using cannabis more than females (31 per cent),” the report added.

Three-quarters said they believe consuming cannabis affects their ability to drive. Among respondents who used cannabis over the course of the past year, that figure falls to 50 per cent.

The survey also sampled 730 medical cannabis patients — 71 per cent of them reported they had no documentation actually permitting them to use medical cannabis legally in Canada.

Those medical users tended to purchase pot from illicit sources — notable, given that the Liberal government is about to impose an excise tax on medical cannabis as well, raising the price for patients procuring legal cannabis.

“The top sources to obtain cannabis for medical purposes were from a family member or friend (33 per cent), compassion club/dispensary (23 per cent), dealer (22 per cent), and a Health Canada licensed producer or an acquaintance (21 per cent),” the report said.

“Nineteen per cent of respondents who used cannabis for medical purposes reported that they accessed their cannabis through the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes program.”