This photo illustration shows dried cannabis flowers on April 30, 2024 in San Anselmo, California. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has announced plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, making it a Schedule III controlled substance rather than the Schedule I drug it is currently listed as.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Americans are reaching for buds more than booze.
Daily or near-daily marijuana use is now more common in the United States than comparable levels of alcohol use, according to a 40-year analysis of data by Carnegie Mellon University.
The report analyzed U.S. data from more than 1.6 million participants collected across 27 surveys conducted between 1979 and 2022.
While alcohol remains more widely used overall, first-time daily marijuana use will surpass alcohol consumption at the same frequency in 2022, with approximately 17.7 million cannabis users and 14.7 million alcohol drinkers.
This is a 15-fold increase in cannabis consumption since 1992, when 900,000 Americans confessed to using cannabis daily and 8.9 million drank cannabis daily.
“We believe young adults are embracing cannabis for daily and monthly use at higher rates than other generations, and the data clearly shows that “There is,” he said.
“There are indications that consumers are switching from other recreational uses (alcohol, tobacco) to cannabis, so as younger generations grow up with legal cannabis options, we believe cannabis acceptance will become more prevalent and they will switch from traditional options to cannabis,” he added.
The report comes as the cannabis industry hopes the Drug Enforcement Administration will ease federal regulations and reclassify marijuana, which would allow increased access to funding, research and investment opportunities for cannabis-related companies. Tilray, canopy growth and Curaleaf.
But the spirits and alcohol industry has been working to defend its market share despite changing trends among younger consumers.
“The U.S. alcoholic beverage industry is seeing the youngest consumers who are under the legal drinking age drinking less alcohol and less of it,” said Bill Kirk, analyst at Ross MKM.
Kirk said there are a growing number of trends that are contributing to this, including more people choosing to drink less alcohol, an increase in quality non-alcoholic beverage options and growing cannabis use.
“From the cannabis side, while the alcohol industry has not necessarily been hurt by this trend, we believe that if federal regulations allow us to take advantage of anticipated industry growth, we will be able to partner with and invest in the alcohol industry.” , will be acquired,” Fortune said. .
But some Wall Street analysts expect the spread of cannabis to have an even bigger impact on the alcohol industry.
“We estimate that legal marijuana could have a negative impact on beer sales.” [compound annual growth rate] “It could be increased by up to 230 basis points in Canada and 75 basis points in the U.S. where it’s legal,” Bernstein analyst Nadine Tharwat said, referring to basis points, or bps, which are one-hundredth of a percentage point.
She added that conflicting state-by-state policies regarding cannabis are softening the blow for large brewers and distillers. Constellation Brand, Diageo, AB InBev and Molson Coors.
“Federal legalization has the potential to increase the risks of alcohol, but in the current political climate that seems a long way off,” Sarwat said.
