Weed weights at a glance
Cannabis sizes are named after fractions of an ounce but weighed in grams. The standard steps:
- Gram: 1 g, the base unit.
- Eighth: 3.5 g, or 1/8 of an ounce.
- Quarter: 7 g, or 2 eighths.
- Half: 14 g, or 4 eighths.
- Ounce: 28 g, or 8 eighths.
Why an eighth is 3.5 g and not 3.54 g
An ounce is exactly 28.349523125 g, a value fixed by the 1959 international yard and pound agreement (Wikipedia). Divide that by 8 and an eighth comes to about 3.54 g. Cannabis sellers round the ounce down to 28 g, as Canada Grows Indoors explains, and 28 divided by 8 gives the familiar 3.5 g.
The same rounding runs through every size. An exact quarter would be about 7.09 g and an exact half about 14.17 g, but they are sold as 7 g and 14 g. On a single eighth the difference is less than a twentieth of a gram; across a whole ounce it adds up to about 0.35 g.
Go by the net weight on the package or a scale rather than the size of the pile. Net weight is one of the details Health Canada requires on cannabis labels, and any seller worth buying from shows it clearly. The same weight can look very different: Canada Grows Indoors notes that varieties differ in density and fluffiness, so not all of them can be judged accurately by eye.
Slang you may hear
Sellers have nicknames for these sizes. Weed Republic notes that an ounce is often called a zip or an O, and a half ounce a half O, while Canada Grows Indoors says a quarter is also called a quad. The cannabis slang guide covers more terms.
Canada's 30 g public possession limit
Federal law lets adults carry up to 30 g of legal cannabis, dried or the equivalent in other forms, in public, subject to provincial rules (Justice Canada). Ontario uses the same limit, which it describes as about 1 ounce, for adults 19 and older (Government of Ontario). Because an ounce is 28.35 g, 30 g is a little more than an ounce.
Other products count toward the same 30 g through equivalents, so the limit works out to 150 g of fresh cannabis, 450 g of edible product, 2,100 g of liquid product, 7.5 g of concentrates or 30 seeds. Justice Canada notes that provinces can set a lower limit. The equivalents for 1 g of dried cannabis are:
- 5 g of fresh cannabis
- 15 g of edible product
- 70 g of liquid product
- 0.25 g of concentrates, solid or liquid
- 1 cannabis plant seed
Comparing prices by weight
Prices are easiest to compare per gram: divide the price by the number of grams. A bigger size is only good value if you use it while it is fresh, since the terpenes that carry cannabis's smell dropped by more than half within 4 months in one year-long storage study (Milay and colleagues, Frontiers in Plant Science).
For what an ounce typically costs, see how much an ounce of weed costs in Canada; for keeping larger amounts fresh, the weed storage guide. Choosing between strains, grades and labels is covered in the cannabis flower buying guide.
Buying by weight at GasDank
Regular ounces at GasDank start from $50, and GasDank sometimes runs $40 ounce specials, posted on the deals page. Delivery is same day across Toronto and the GTA, usually within 1 to 2 hours; in Toronto and Mississauga the minimum order is $40, with free delivery from $80 ($15 below that). Browse all flower. Customers must be 19 or older (21 in Quebec), with ID checked at the door.
