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Strange patterns in Canadians’ use of cash last year have caused a stir among monetary analysts. Last October the value of banknotes in circulation fell $1.2 billion. Drops that big are rare. In fact, that’s the biggest October decline since data on notes in circulation began to be collected back in 1935, the year the Bank of Canada started operations.

Let’s see now, can we think of anything that happened in Canada last October that might explain why Canadians wouldn’t be needing quite so much cash? Wikipedia tells us that last October there was a Quebec provincial election, University of Waterloo’s Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Kelowna hosted the world mixed curling championships (we beat Spain in the final. Spain?) And, oh yes, though the memory of it is a bit hazy, on Oct. 17 this country legalized marijuana.

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Was cannabis legalization the culprit?

None of those other events should have affected Canadians’ use of cash but one of the main purposes of marijuana legalization was precisely to bring the illegal underground trade above-ground, to de-stigmatize it and to tax it, which our various governments have been doing. If you stroll the streets of any major city and inhale (as you should do regularly when strolling!) you will conclude that marijuana de-stigmatization has worked.