American corporations are great at retooling their business/supply chains for different products (see how quickly everyone moved into hard seltzers).

I do expect big tobacco to move in aggressively if weed is made legal.

Hasn’t really happened in Canada. I think a small-player alcohol company did move in, but only after the bubble popped.

Turns out legalization of a drug doesn’t lead to massive increases in consumption. Who knew.

Definitely kneecapped the black market though: most moved to the legal side and black market prices cratered.

Marijuana use has massively increased in the US as states have legalized it.

Users have doubled: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264862/cannabis-consumpt...

Use among users has also increased 20%: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962353

If I could face consequences for using drugs, I will deny it even after being positive in a test. Of course, once legalized, I'll have no problem saying that I used in once or twice a year. Being it legal, safer and out of the dangerous black market, there will be some new users.

Same happened after alcohol prohibition: more people consumed after the ban was lifted, but consumption was safer. But rarely people that didn't consume during the prohibition went on alcohol binge after the end of the ban. They just drank a couple of beers per week, maybe even a glass of bourbon twice a year, now that they can buy and consume it safely.

Thus the stats you linked doesn't necesarily show a "massive" increase in use, but many people using it sparsely now and many people now admiting to use it that were using previously. In fact, while statista.com shows a 100% increase, the second and more controlled study shows only a ~20% increase that makes more sense (far from massive).

20% increase in consumption isn’t exactly what I would call massive.

Looking at historic trends the point where pot was first legalized for recreational use isn’t obvious. If anything the long term upward tends started long before legalization which didn’t seem to have significant impact. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

I’m surprised it’s not more personally if the numbers are accurate. A lot of pretty casual users in professional jobs were mostly not going to find a friend of a friend to do an illegal transaction with. But they’ll go into a dispensary now and then.

But you really see that reflected in the doubled number of users which is probably the more relevant number.

I'd bet alcohol use went way up after prohibition too. Both in number of people consuming, and on how much they consume on average.

I've personally known people with terminal cancer who wouldn't use marijuana to manage pain and nausea because it is federally illegal. They suffered more than they should have. Is lower use always good?

I have had my first legal weed experiences in the past year in New York and even the lowest THC % at the legal weed store is stronger than anything I use to get on the black market when weed was illegal.

Then there are these incredible 10mg THC infused lemonades that are amazing.

On the other hand, the novelty of legal weed only lasted about 4 months for me. Because the store was there and there was this selection I never had access to before I wanted to try different things and was smoking more than I would have normally. At the end of the day though it is all still just weed. It is fun for me but only once a month at most now.

I also don't know a single person that didn't smoke weed because it was illegal and now they do because they can go to the store and purchase it legally.

I think that the polling has doubled for users because people can answer the poll honestly when weed is legal. The idea that weed being illegal is keeping 50% of the potential weed smoking population from smoking is utterly preposterous.

If anything, what is interesting is how many people who would never try weed when it was illegal, will still never try it when it is legal. They may say it is because it is illegal or they don't want to smoke but you can't sell them on 10mg legal lemonaid either.

Sounds like you are just saying it needs more marketing. Small timers are all over social media but big timers can buy segments on news and daytime television and pretend it’s a story when it’s really an ad.

Now that it’s “legal” I wonder if that was what was holding it back before.

Lobbyists don't care about uncapturable black market money. The legal market has led to massive increase in legal, taxable money, so now is exactly the time for big tobacco to start salivating over the idea of capturing all of those transactions.

Denver definitely had perverse consequence. people eking out a living selling weed on the street quickly turned to... harder substances. people will get their dollar and people will get their high

Big tobacco might have stayed out of the fray but since legalization the vape giant JUUL owns and operates dispensaries.

Juul is Big Tobacco.

> Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris Companies), acquired a 35% stake in Juul Labs for $12.8 billion on December 20, 2018. Altria is the largest tobacco company in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juul

Agreed -- but I think nobody knows quite how it'll play out.

I think of the thriving microbrewery scene (vs not just Budweiser et al but so-called "premium" beers from megabreweries that don't hold a candle to the local stuff).

I also wonder about the degree to which psilocybin might be following THC's path, wrt state vs federal laws....

Hopefully, the small/mid sized businesses hold a niche in the same way that craft brewers have maintained their existence (until they get acquired).

Pabst already makes THC seltzers for the California market. Big business is already here, folks.