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Residents in Ontario lived further from a cannabis retail store than their counterparts in other provinces, newly released federal figures suggest.

The population-weighted average distance between Canadians and the nearest legal pot shop was 34 kilometres in July, down from 66 km four months earlier, said a report published Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

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With just 24 cannabis shops open across the province in July, Ontarians were living, on average, 43 km from the nearest pot store. Only residents of the territories lived farther away, on average.

P.E.I. residents lived closest to pot stores, averaging just 12 km away, the report said. Alberta, with 176 retailers up and running by July, was second at 13 km.

In London — the only Southwestern Ontario winner in the province’s first pot store licence lottery early this year — there were three brick-and-mortar outlets within its 429 square kilometre footprint in July.