The Effects of COVID-19 on U.S Marijuana and Cannabis Product Consumers (INFOGRAPHIC)

Alan Wood, Founder, Weekend Gardner

We’ve come a long way since marijuana was first decriminalized in 1973 in Oregon. Since medical marijuana was first legalized in California, the popularity of cannabis and marijuana products has grown significantly.

In 2016, the global legal cannabis market was valued at $14.3 billion U.S. dollars and is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 21.1% from 2017 to 2024, with an expected reach of $63.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to a data compiled by Ameri Research Inc.

But since the COVID-19 outbreak, these numbers have become irrelevant. So how big of an impact did COVID-19 do on the U.S. marijuana and cannabis product consumption?

People have been stocking up on food and other essentials during the outbreak that led to a shortage of products like disinfectants, hand sanitizers, toilet papers, and food. Similarly, the demand for cannabis has also spiked.

Do note that it was also found in a similar survey conducted by American Marijuana that 29.28% of survey-takers admitted to smoking more weed since the COVID-19 outbreak compared to only 5.70% that stopped smoking. The majority (38.52%) of them consumed the same amount since the outbreak while 26.50% smoked less weed.

Moreover, the spike in usage was found to have a strong link with “keeping you sane” amidst the COVID-19 hysteria. While 65.49% of them didn’t use any anxiety relief supplements, 34.51% of them did admit to having tried other anxiety relief supplements besides marijuana but only 8.32% found the alternatives to be more effective than weed.

To understand the direct correlation between the U.S. marijuana and cannabis product consumption and the coronavirus outbreak, Weekend Gardener conducted a survey involving 1,000 U.S. weed smokers and their weed consumption habits amidst the COVID-19 pandemic as well as and came up with the following:

The number of heavy pot smokers during quarantine was found to have increased by 5%, from only 16.04% of survey participants that smoke above 10 times a week to 21.30% during the quarantine.

Similarly, there is also a decrease in weed consumption once a week or rarely, from 37.34% down to 31.83% during the quarantine period. The same goes for consuming weed below 3 times a week, from 21.55% down to 16.29%.

The main reason why American’s were found to consume more weed during quarantine is due to stress and anxiety amidst the coronavirus hysteria. 27.6% of the survey participants admitted that they use weed to treat stress/anxiety while 21.7% do so to help them sleep better.

Interestingly enough, 45% of American U.S. smokers don’t care about whether or not smoking weed will increase the risk of being infected with the coronavirus compared to 35.5% of them do so to some extent but will continue smoking.

Overall, it was found that about half (49.6%) of the survey participants will not change their weed smoking habit after the outbreak compared to 11.8% of them that will withdraw from smoking weed to focus on other things.

To learn more about the interesting data and findings by WeekendGardener, head over to this link.