In this photo illustration, dried marijuana flowers are displayed on April 30, 2024 in San Anselmo, California. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug and designate it as a Schedule III controlled substance instead of the Schedule I drug it is currently listed as.
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Americans crave bud more than they crave booze.
Daily or nearly daily marijuana use is more common in the United States than similar amounts of alcohol consumption, according to an analysis of 40 years of data. Carnegie Mellon University.
The report examined data from more than 1.6 million participants collected through 27 surveys between 1979 and 2022.
Although alcohol use remains more widespread overall, the number of daily first-time cannabis users will exceed the number of alcohol drinkers by 2022, with approximately 17.7 million cannabis users and 14.7 million alcohol drinkers.
Marijuana use has increased 15-fold since 1992, when 900,000 Americans used marijuana daily, compared with 8.9 million who drank alcohol daily.
“We believe the data clearly shows that younger age groups are adopting cannabis at higher rates on a daily and monthly basis than other generations,” Roth MKM analyst Scott Fortune said.
He added: “There are signs that consumers are displacing other recreational uses (alcohol, tobacco) and we believe that as younger generations grow up with legal cannabis options, acceptance of cannabis will become more widespread and replace Traditional choice.
The report comes as the cannabis industry anticipates that the Drug Enforcement Administration will ease federal restrictions and reclassify cannabis, which will increase access to funding, research and investment for cannabis-related companies, such as Tirray, canopy growth and Kula leaves.
However, the spirits and alcohol industry has struggled to defend Although trends among younger consumers have changed, its market share remains.
“Looking at U.S. alcohol, the youngest legal drinking age consumers are drinking less frequently, and when they do drink, they drink less,” Roth MKM analyst Bill Kirk said.
Kirk said growing trends are contributing to this, including more abstinence from alcohol, better availability of quality non-alcoholic options and an increase in cannabis use.
“We wouldn’t say alcohol will necessarily be harmed by this trend from the cannabis side, but we will be looking for alcohol to partner with, invest in, or capitalize on anticipated industry growth when federal regulations allow it to capitalize on anticipated industry growth,” Fortune magazine said. Acquisition of American Cannabis.
However, some Wall Street analysts expect cannabis adoption to have a larger impact on the alcohol industry.
Bernstein analyst Nadine Sarwat said of the basis points (bps): “We estimate that legal cannabis could have a negative impact on beer sales (CAGR) in Canada of up to 230 basis points (CAGR) if legal in the U.S. The impact is 75 basis points. One basis point is equal to one hundredth of a percentage point.
She added that conflicting state policies on cannabis have softened the blow for the largest brewers and distillers, such as Constellation brand, Diageo, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Molson Coors.
“Federal legalization has the potential to increase the risks of drinking, but in the current political climate, that seems a long way off,” Salvat said.
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