Canadians Spend Nearly As Much on Weed As On Wine

Canada’s booming cannabis biz has grown to almost a ‘tipping point’ where the country is now spending as much on recreational marijuana as it does on wine. And if you this trend isn’t impacting beer sales, you’d better check what you’re smoking…

Add to this the fact that recreational pot, though widely tolerated in Canada, isn’t even legal yet…but that will be happening 2018.

According to a recent report on cannabis consumption published in the journal Economic Insights Canadians consumed almost 772 tons of pot in 2015 (yikes!).

This, according to the Experimental Estimates of Cannabis Consumption in Canada study, would make the cannabis market in Canada in 2015 roughly one-half to two-thirds of the size of the nation’s $9.2 billion beer market, and around 70% to 90% the size of the nation’s $7 billion wine market.

And keep in mind that these findings are from 2015…We’ve got to think pot’s impact on alcohol consumption has to have grown since then and that that impact will accelerate in 2018 when Canada’s recreational marijuana legislation becomes law.

The report also addressed the changing consumption patterns of cannabis from 1960 to 2015, and found that pot has become more popular with an older generation (who may have never really stopped smoking marijuana and are finally owning up to being secret and highly functioning potheads).

According to the study, cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s was primarily consumed by young people, according. But in 2015, only 6% of 15-17 year olds smoked cannabis recreationally (who will still be underage once Canadas law takes effect), compared to two thirds of adults over 25.

So is Canada’s finding’s an outlier or a reality that the American alcohol industry is going to have to address?

In spite of the fact pot remains illegal on a federal level in the US, recreational marijuana for adult use is legal in eight US states as well as the District of Columbia…and 29 states currently have some sort of legalization program in play…

Former Budweiser marketing executive Chris Burggraeve has already  drawn comparisons between the cannabis market with the craft beer industry, and drinks giant Constellation Brands recent entrance into the recreational pot marketplace couldn’t be more strategic…

Recreational pot on a national level in the United States, once thought an impossibility is increasingly looking increasingly inevitable….And just as we’re seeing up in Canada, the growth of recreational pot in the states will also impact America’s alcohol industry…

According to the Drinks Business ‘the US cannabis industry was worth $6 billion in 2016, and is forecast to reach $50 billion by 2026.”

So from our perspective it’s no longer a question of ‘if’ it will…but more a question of ‘to what degree.’

Pot Beer Image Credit: Mitchell Maglio