Alcohol sales in Canada during the pandemic increased by roughly 5.5 percent, meaning that people spent $1.86 billion more on alcohol than in the pre-pandemic period, a new study says. Cannabis sales also increased by roughly 25 percent, translating to an additional $811 million. Published Thursday in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, the study examined alcohol and cannabis sales between March 2020 and June 2021, using data from Statistics Canada, then compared that information with sales in the previous 16-month period. “These results … offer one of the first national perspectives on changes in alcohol and cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the study said. “Whether similar patterns are present in other nations is an open question, but these findings suggest the value of sales data as a strategy to characterize the pandemic’s associations with substance use.” The study was co-produced by McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and supported by the Peter Boris Chair …