Increasingly popular alcohol breaks like Dry January are buoying the emerging US cannabis market as more drinkers — especially younger ones — see marijuana as a healthier alternative.
Emboldened by widening legalization in the U.S., cannabis sellers now actively market to January abstainers with new products and targeted advertisement, while research shows about a third of Americans under the age of 25 doing the start-of-year detox use the drug. Weed sales also grow more in January in some legalized states than other months.
Conversely, alcohol sales fall in January, and tend to drop in places that legalize cannabis. Observed sales hit a post-pandemic low this month at three of the largest U.S. liquor chains, according to data from Bloomberg Second Measure, which tracked a subset of U.S. credit and debit card transactions for LiquorBarn Co., Total Wine & More and BevMo! Inc.
“Anecdotally, we have a lot of people coming into our dispensaries that are saying they are not drinking for January and therefore they’re now upping their cannabis purchases,” said Matt Darin, chief executive officer of Curaleaf Holdings Inc., the most valuable publicly listed marijuana company.
Web searches for Dry January reached an all-time high in the first week of the year, doubling from more than a year ago, according to Google Trends data.
Interest has grown yearly since 2016 alongside a growing aversion to alcohol among younger Americans. About half of 18- to 25-year-olds responding to a national survey said they drank in the past month, down from 60% in 2015. Proponents of drinking breaks claim health benefits ranging from better sleep and clearer skin to improved heart and liver function.
It may spell tough times ahead for the liquor industry, especially as more states look to legalize recreational cannabis. Currently 24 states, including Michigan, and Washington, D.C., allow it, and at least Florida and Hawaii could see votes this year.
“There’s a lot of cannabis consumers who needed the government to tell them it was OK to use cannabis,” Blair MacNeil, Tilray Brands Inc.’s president of Canadian operations, said in an interview.
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