CANNABIS IS THRIVING IN CALIFORNIA’S DISTRESSED ECONOMY

Bishop Henry

The lines outside of dispensaries all over California went out the door when the announcements first came in about the “Stay at Home” order asking people to shelter in place to help combat the spread of COVID-19. There was a spike in cannabis sales in the first days of the order, which was to be expected as smokers panicked at the idea that they may not be able to get their herbal medicine and recreational weed. In some states, despite the initial early spike due to panic buying, adult-use cannabis sales in California, Colorado, and Washington state are all suffering from the economic fallout surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. California, however, is still doing better business than most.

Thankfully, on March 19th, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a “Stay at Home” order but also recognized cannabis as an essential medicine and business which has allowed Californians to continue to buy marijuana. Dispensaries must comply with social distancing and anti-congregation measures as well as additional CDC Guidelines.

According to mjbizdaily, point-of-sale data provided by Seattle-based Headset, adultuse cannabis sales were less than those for the same days in 2019 for six consecutive days in Colorado and five consecutive days in Washington state. Until now, none of the three adult-use cannabis markets tracked by Headset have experienced declining sales over an extended period of time. California is the only state who is still seeing more purchasing during this time compared to last year’s data. In comparison to previous months, where California’s legal cannabis sales were up 68% over the previous year’s purchases of the same month, the buying for the month of March is down 14%.

the state relies heavily on tourism to help finance its cannabis industry. Travel bans and stay at home orders have caused the popular Spring Break destination tourism dollars that would have also trickled into the cannabis market. California has had a long standing cannabis culture and a more consistent market that doesn’t rely so much on visitors purchasing cannabis. Californians have always consumed a lot of weed. The downtick in purchasing by Californians compared to the previous months prior to the COVID-19 outbreak could be a result of the uncertainty in people finances, rent, food, and day to day essentials might be taking a priority in some budgets over weed.

Meanwhile, on April 3rd, Washington state owned Acreage, which owns and operates across multiple states announced that it is furloughing 122 of its employees in an attempt to slash costs in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Employees in Acreage-owned dispensaries, field operations, and corporate offices across multiple states are part of this cut back. How this will affect operations and supply in California, where Acreage operates both dispensaries and grow operations, is yet to be seen.

A downtown Los Angeles dispensary manager, who would like to remain anonymous, so let’s call him Mark, says that his dispensary has not seen any decline in the amount of cannabis that they are selling. Mark was not surprised by the initial push of patients and customers rushing to pick up their herbs. Mark says that he has seen fewer and fewer customers come in over-time but doesn’t think that this is because of the lack of demand, he thinks it’s because a lot of people stocked up for the month. He says he saw some of his regular customers quadruple their normal amounts. Mark thinks that he will continue to see this kind of buying pattern until the COVID-19 epidemic settles and he actually recommends it, “the less time out in public the better, right?” He does say that there is no need to horde weed, the supply, for now, is solid and buying more than usual should only be because people want to limit their outside exposure time. He thanks his customers for staying loyal and encourages everyone to continue to support their local dispensaries during these difficult times.

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