Americans now spend more money on legal marijuana than on chocolate
Since then, another 20 states have followed their western counterparts’ example, allowing licensed retailers to sell the drug recreationally – though federal regulators remain split on a more widespread decriminalization.
As these dispensaries continue to surface across the county, the legal cannabis industry has benefited, seeing its market evaluation swell in the past year – a trend authors say is poised to grow in coming years.
In the meantime, the total amount spent by Americans on marijuana products has surpassed sums spent on painkillers and even the confectionary, which draw in $22.8 billion and 18.2billion respectively.
Americans spent more money on legal weed last year than chocolate and craft beer combined after major changes to marijuana laws, a new report has revealed.
Tapped at $30billion by cannabis website MJBizDaily, the monetary measure of legal marijuana sales increased by more than $12million from the year before, when only Washington and Colorado were allowed to shill the smelly stuff.
According to a new report from MJBizDaily, Americans spent about $30 billion on legal marijuana last year.
That compares with roughly $20 billion spent on chocolate and $8 billion spent on craft brews.
Almost two-dozen states now allow sales of weed for recreational purposes, and 19 more allow sales for medicinal use.
Legal cannabis sales are still dwarfed by sales of tobacco products, which last year totaled about $53 billion. But tobacco sales are steadily declining, whereas marijuana sales are rising.
By 2028, according to MJBizDaily, sales of legal weed could reach $57 billion.
This is extraordinary when you think that it wasn’t so long ago Americans were buying all their pot from dealers rather than dispensaries.
Yet illicit sales remain far more prevalent than legal ones. Whitney Economics estimates that three-quarters of marijuana sales in the United States still take place on the black market.
