OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says its latest survey shows more people are using cannabis since the legalization of recreational pot last fall and Canadians are increasingly buying it from legal retailers.

Figures from its National Cannabis Survey released today show that 5.3 million or 18 per cent of Canadians aged 15 years and older said they used pot within the last three months.

That’s up from 14 per cent who reported using cannabis a year earlier, before legalization in October 2018.

The quarterly survey also showed that initial data from the first three months of 2019 indicate that Canadians are changing their cannabis purchasing habits.

The agency says an estimated 47 per cent of cannabis users or 2.5 million Canadians bought pot legally during that time, up from 23 per cent or 954,000 people during the same quarter a year ago, when non-medical cannabis use was illegal.

Also, 38 per cent of users told Statistics Canada that they bought cannabis illegally during the first-quarter of 2019, compared with 51 per cent a year earlier.

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