Americans now have another color to focus on for the Fourth of July besides the traditional red, white, and blue. That would be pungent shades of green, as in cannabis. During the holiday week, legal marijuana sales jumped to $400 million nationwide, which is 60 percent above average, according to sales data.
Put simply, Independence Day staples like burgers and beer might have a new friend in bud. As data collected by Akerna Corp shows, each day leading up to Fourth of July experienced above-average sales spikes when compared to national averages for the day in question. For example, on Monday, July 1, dispensaries enjoyed a 45% increase in sales when contrasted with a typical day of sales on a Monday.
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That was on the lowest increase in daily sales, by the way. On Wednesday, July 3, the cannabis industry sold over twice the daily average (112%) it does on usually Wednesdays. The total amount individual customers spent at a dispensary, as well as the number of products they purchased, also had small bumps during the Fourth of July week.
As Green Entrepreneur first referenced, the $400 million in cannabis sales isn’t far off from the other staples of the holiday. For Independence Day 2018, Americans bought $1 billion worth of beer, a billion on fireworks, and spent $568 million on wine, according to WalletHub data.
Javier Hasse, a contributing writer at The Fresh Toast, also reported that Jesse Billingsley of Akerna Corp. estimated that if growth rates stay steady, Americans will spend more money on weed than wine next FOJ. If you didn’t know by now, this is just another example of cannabis cementing its place in mainstream American culture.
