With Canada becoming the first G20 country to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, there has been increasing interest in the emergence of this new retail market. The research utilizes social media analytics to analyze the public's response to the rollout of the government-controlled cannabis retail stores: Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS). The research analyzes 17,162 tweets mentioning the OCS (@ONCannabisStore) on Twitter in the one-year period following the legalization of recreational cannabis. Using thematic analysis, 19 codes are identified and further categorized under six themes—i.e., consignment, product, retail model, policy, producers, and consumers. The research provides valuable insight into the public's perceptions of the newly legalized cannabis retail market on social media. As a practical implication of the research, key concerns and issues with the initial retail rollout are identified, which provides insight into the evolution of an illegal to legal retail market. The methods can be used by future researchers, policy makers, and emerging cannabis retailers to gather and understand cannabis consumers' opinions on social media. Furthermore, the findings can be leveraged to inform future government policies and decisions around the emergence of this new retail sector.

随着加拿大成为第一个将休闲娱乐合法化的G20国家，人们对这种新零售市场的兴起越来越感兴趣。该研究利用社交媒体分析来分析公众对政府控制的大麻零售商店（安大略省大麻商店，OCS）推出的反应。该研究分析了休闲大麻合法化后的一年内，Twitter上有17162条推文提到了OCS（@ONCannabisStore）。通过主题分析，确定了19个代码，并将其进一步分为六个主题-寄售，产品，零售模式，政策，生产者和消费者。该研究为公众在社交媒体上对新合法大麻零售市场的看法提供了宝贵的见解。作为研究的实际意义，确定了初始零售部署中的主要关注点和问题，这为从非法零售到合法零售市场的演变提供了见解。未来的研究人员，政策制定者和新兴的大麻零售商可以使用这些方法来收集和理解大麻消费者在社交媒体上的观点。此外，可以利用这些发现为新的零售业的兴起提供未来政府政策和决策的依据。