Alcohol sales get higher after weed legalization contrary to industry fears | US news | The Guardian
"Weed" is a bit quaint in the headline, but still it's interesting that in Colorado, legal cannabis has not hurt alcohol sales at all. In fact, they've increased.
So much for drug reform advocates who like to argue that cannabis is a much less harmful drug than alcohol, if it turns out legal cannabis increases alcohol consumption anyway...*
* mind you, given my post about how drug use varies extremely widely from one place to the next, I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be a purely local effect.
2 comments:
Have a closer look Steve ...
But I don’t think people are doubling down in one category or the other.” To underscore that point, he noted that legal marijuana has had “no demonstrable impact at all in terms of sales” at New Belgium.
alcohol sales continued to steadily increase as well, with alcohol excise taxes rising 2.1%, the same increase as the year prior.
One study found that legalization of medical marijuana in many states led to sharp decreases in alcohol consumption. The alcohol industry is “smart to worry about it”, one of the study’s authors, University of Colorado Denver economics professor Daniel Rees, told the Denver Post.
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The increase could simply be all the visitors from other states purchasing their pot in Colorado and buying booze as well. Thus ...
Part of the reason for the alcohol and marijuana industries’ success may be a boost in Colorado tourism. Though some state officials insist marijuana is not attracting new visitors, Colorado tourism set record highs in 2014, the first year of legalization, with 71.3 million visitors who collectively spent $18.6bn.
Yeah, I knew that, John. I just didn't want to admit it. :)
(Although I did acknowledge that it may be different in other places - which included in other States as more and more of them legalise it, making "pot tourism" less necessary.)
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