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An ounce of weed is 28 grams (28.35 g exactly, rounded down by convention), so an eighth is 3.5 g, a quarter 7 g and a half ounce 14 g. Canadian adults may carry up to 30 g in public.
Last updated: October 2026
Cannabis has its own mix of metric and imperial units. Legal stores in Canada label everything in grams, while most people still talk in eighths, quarters and ounces, and a few old-school growers still count in pounds. If you have ever wondered why an “ounce” is 28 g and not 28.35, or how an eighth relates to the 30 g limit, this page puts it all in one place.
Below you will find a full conversion chart, the sizes you will see on a Canadian store shelf, the public possession limit and how seeds, fresh buds and edibles count toward it, and what a home grow of four plants actually yields in ounces.
There are 28 grams in an ounce of weed. A true avoirdupois ounce is 28.35 g, but the cannabis trade rounds it down to 28 so that it divides neatly: two halves of 14 g, four quarters of 7 g, and eight eighths of 3.5 g. The leftover 0.35 g is simply ignored.
That convention comes from the pre-legal market, where ounces were split by hand on small scales and round numbers made the arithmetic easy. Legal Canadian retailers sell by the gram instead, so the “ounce” on a provincial store shelf is labelled 28 g, and the half ounce is often sold as a 15 g pack rather than 14 g.
Every common cannabis measurement is a fraction or multiple of the 28 g ounce, except the pound, which is usually rounded to 448 g (16 x 28) in conversation but is really 453.6 g. The chart below lists each size with its slang name and roughly how many joints it makes at 0.3 to 0.5 g per joint.
| Amount | Grams | Common names | Approx. joints (0.3 to 0.5 g each) |
|---|---|---|---|
| One gram | 1 g | a gram, a “g” | 2 to 3 |
| Eighth of an ounce | 3.5 g | an eighth, an “8th” | 7 to 11 |
| Quarter ounce | 7 g | a quarter, a “Q” | 14 to 23 |
| Half ounce | 14 g (15 g in many stores) | a half, a “half O” | 28 to 46 |
| Ounce | 28 g | an ounce, an “O”, a “zip” | 56 to 93 |
| Quarter pound | 112 g (113.4 g exact) | a “QP” | 224 to 373 |
| Half pound | 224 g (226.8 g exact) | a “half pound”, a “HP” | 448 to 746 |
| Pound | 448 g (453.6 g exact) | a “pound”, an “LB” | 896 to 1,493 |
Joint counts are rough guides. A thin cone holds 0.3 g, a standard pre-roll in a Canadian store is 0.5 g, and many legal pre-roll packs contain 0.35 g mini joints.
An eighth of weed is 3.5 grams, a quarter is 7 grams and a half ounce is 14 grams. Because they all come from the same 28 g ounce, they convert cleanly into one another:
The eighth is the most popular size in Canada for one simple reason: it is enough to try a new strain properly without committing to a large amount. In legal stores it is sold as a 3.5 g jar or pouch.
Licensed stores in Canada sell dried flower in grams, most often 1 g, 3.5 g, 7 g, 14 g or 15 g, and 28 g packs. Every package lists its net weight in grams, and the THC and CBD are printed as a percentage or in milligrams per gram.
You may notice your 3.5 g jar weighs a little under that a few weeks after purchase. Dried flower keeps losing moisture after packaging, and a 2% to 5% loss is common if a jar sits on a shelf or is opened often. Packs are filled to the labelled weight; what changes is the water in the bud, not the amount of cannabis.
Retailers also cannot sell you more than 30 g of dried cannabis, or its equivalent in other products, in a single transaction, which matches the federal public possession limit.
An adult in Canada can carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis, or the equivalent amount of other cannabis products, in public. Thirty grams is just over one ounce. Other forms are converted to a dried-cannabis equivalent using the federal ratios below, which Health Canada publishes in its public possession calculator.
| Product | Equal to 1 g dried | Equal to the 30 g limit |
|---|---|---|
| Dried flower | 1 g | 30 g |
| Fresh (undried) cannabis | 5 g | 150 g |
| Solid products such as edibles (up to 3% THC) | 15 g | 450 g |
| Non-solid products, not beverages (up to 3% THC) | 70 g | 2,100 g |
| Concentrates such as hash and vape oil | 0.25 g | 7.5 g |
| Beverages (3% THC or less) | 570 g | 17.1 kg |
| Cannabis seeds | 1 seed | 30 seeds |
Different products add together. A 3.5 g eighth, 1 g of hash (4 g equivalent) and a 10 seed pack (10 g equivalent) total 17.5 g toward the 30 g public limit. At home, federal law sets no maximum for cannabis you grew yourself, and most provinces add none; Quebec is the main exception, with a limit of 150 g per residence.
A healthy indoor cannabis plant usually yields 3 to 7 ounces (about 100 to 200 g) of dried bud, while a large outdoor plant in a good Canadian summer can produce 10 to 20 ounces (300 to 600 g) or more. The numbers depend on the strain, the light, the pot size and how long the plant was vegetated.
That means the four plants each Canadian household may grow, where the province allows it, can easily produce more than the 30 g public limit many times over. The plant-count rules for each province are explained in our guide to how many cannabis plants you can grow in Canada, and our yield per plant guide breaks the numbers down by setup.
Remember that harvest weight and dry weight are very different. Freshly cut buds are mostly water and lose roughly 75% to 80% of their weight while drying, which is why the federal equivalency counts 5 g of fresh cannabis as 1 g of dried. A plant that looks like a pound on the day you cut it often finishes at a little over three ounces in the jar.
Use a digital pocket scale that reads to 0.01 g, calibrate it with the test weight it came with, and always tare the container first. Kitchen scales that read to 1 g are fine for weighing a harvest but too coarse for checking an eighth.
If you grow your own, weigh each plant after the dry and again after two weeks of curing. The difference tells you how far along the dry really was, and the jar weight is the number to log.
Quick conversions to remember
A quarter of weed is 7 grams, which is a quarter of a 28 g ounce. It equals two eighths. In legal Canadian stores it is sold as a 7 g package, and it makes roughly 14 to 23 joints depending on how much you roll into each one.
Half an ounce of weed is 14 grams. Many legal stores in Canada sell a 15 g pack instead, which is slightly more than a traditional half. Either way, it is four eighths, and it sits well under the 30 g public possession limit.
An ounce of weed is 28 grams. The exact ounce is 28.35 g, rounded down by convention. The 30 g figure is the Canadian public possession limit, which is just over one ounce of dried cannabis, not the size of an ounce.
There are eight eighths in an ounce. Each eighth is 3.5 g, so eight of them make 28 g. Four eighths make a half ounce, and two make a quarter ounce.
Yes. Under the federal rules, one cannabis seed counts as one gram of dried cannabis, so you can carry up to 30 seeds in public if you have no other cannabis with you. The limit applies in public, not inside your home.
When you are ready to grow your own ounces, every seed we sell is already in Canada and ships from Vancouver in plain packaging in 3 to 7 business days. Start with our feminized seeds, where every plant grows buds.
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