Are Craft Beer Drinkers And Cannabis Users All That Different?

The short answer is that, in many ways, they aren’t.

Last Saturday was 4/20 Day, an unofficial celebration of cannabis and pot culture. And people were actively celebrating the high all over the nation.

And it occurred to us that 4/20 Day wasn’t all that different from something like National Beer Day which many of us celebrated on April 7^th, or even New Year’s Eve.

American Craft Beer knows many in the craft beer industry who are regular pot users.

They may not champion it like they do craft beer – but there’s several people we know in the beer biz who admit to using cannabis daily.

And clearly cannabis is increasingly becoming normalized both culturally and in legal terms…With every year 4/20 Day is becoming less of an underground celebration and more an acknowledgement of a seemingly inevitable progression.

So maybe it’s time that we get honest about the primary reason that people drink alcohol and/or smoke marijuana to begin with.

In both cases that reason is mood enhancement…The drinks industry tends to politely skirt the obvious but how many of us would have gravitated towards alcohol if it didn’t provide a pleasurable high?

And perhaps it’s just another remnant of the Prohibition era that this reality is played down in the drinks biz (like we’re ashamed of the truth). But the fact that people drink alcohol because they enjoy its particular high, is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.

And we get that drinking also involves an additional sensory experience that’s appealing – the pleasure we derive from a drink’s flavor. But really, when was the last time you heard someone rave about a non-alcoholic beer’s flavor?

Unlike societal drinking, marijuana has less cultural pleasantries it can hide behind. With cannabis the truth is in your face…No matter the delivery system its entire point is to get you high.

But the truth is people drink alcohol for the very same reason.

The fact that an alcohol high is different from what cannabis delivers is really more a question of a personal preference than it is one of intention.

And yes, there are craft beer drinkers that have no space for pot users – and vice versa.

There are also many who argue that pot is less hard on one’s heath than alcohol…and increasingly it’s getting harder to not see some truth to that.

Others see drinking as a tamer approach to mood enhancement, especially when compared to the super-potent forms of pot being produced today, (and there’s some truth to that too).

But to not acknowledge that alcohol and marijuana are both drug experiences, that they answer the same directive, mood enhancement, is just not being honest.

(Pot Beer Image Credit: Mitchell Maglio)