Higher Education: The April Roundup
TOP 5 Cannabis Trends This Month:
📈 Cannabis sales surged in march. Notably, California set an all time high with sales of $349 million growing 22% from February and 27% from a year ago.
💰 Oils and tinctures sales have been on the rise since COVID lockdowns. Grand View Research said that the global cannabis extract market size is expected to be valued at $28.5 billion by 2027.
🤑 Marijuana legalization support is at an all time high. In a survey done by PEW Research Center, they concluded that 91% of US adults support rec. & medical use (60%) or just medical use (31%). Only 9% said it shouldn’t be legalized.
🧾 44 members of the house of representatives sent a letter to congressional leaders demanding for a prohibition of federal interference with cannabis activities that are legal under state or tribal law.
🍃 During the pandemic, cannabis sales broke records. The main driver was the increase in average basket size increase by 33%, and we expect this trend to continue coming out of the pandemic.
Legalization is on the horizon:
The House of Reps. recently signed a bill to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level.
The democrats have control of the senate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this month he intends to soon introduce a federal cannabis legalization bill.
SAFE Banking Act keeps getting reintroduced in the House.
State level acceptance has escalated rapidly in the last year (Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota, and New York).
In the past 12 months Pennsylvania’s medical cannabis market has brought in more than $900 million dollars. So far in 2021, they are leading all other US states in basket size at $123.88 per basket. Concentrates had the highest average item price at $61, and tinctures, flower and vapor pens followed closely behind with an average item price of more than $50.
If and when cannabis becomes federally legal, it poses a lot of opportunity for big corporations to get into the cannabis space, and potential risks for current cannabis companies.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC last month his company “absolutely” would explore cannabis delivery if the federal government legalizes marijuana. Elizabeth Ashford, an executive at Eaze was interviewed after hearing this news and she welcomed it “When companies like Uber are talking about getting into cannabis delivery, it’s a really good market signal about how ubiquitous cannabis legalization is and also how ubiquitous customer demand is for delivered cannabis products.”
This week, Alabama’s House voted on legalizing medical cannabis and they passed an amended bill by a vote of 68-34. The bill now goes back to the senate for consideration. If passed, Alabama would be the 39th medical use market in the US, and the third medical use market in the deep south.
With this said, the market will be very restricted. Alabama also just passed the “Compassion Act.” The act restricts the number of licenses and patient qualifying conditions. It also would ban smokable flower, vaping products, candies and baked goods.