It should come as no surprise that the legal cannabis industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. After all, it was an industry that had a massive customer base that was already buying its products on the black market. The only other industry in modern times that is comparable is the alcohol industry after the repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933, aka the end of alcohol prohibition.
At that time, there were millions of people using alcohol they either made or procured illegally. After passage of the 21st Amendment to The U.S. Constitution – which repealed the 18th – those millions of people shifted to the legal marketplace to get their alcohol, for the most part.
Although it is happening in a slower and more piecemeal fashion, we are seeing a similar shift of cannabis consumers from the black market to the legal market. This means that the industry is growing as fast as growers can grow product and retailers can get it on the shelves. At least twenty million regular marijuana users that don’t have to be convinced by a slick marketing campaign that cannabis is beneficial both medicinally and recreationally. They already know; they are just waiting for a legal shop to open up close enough to them and with low enough prices and high enough quality to make them leave the familiarity of their dealer(s).
For this reason, the legal cannabis industry is experiencing explosive growth. From a new report from Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics:
Worldwide consumer spending on legal cannabis is projected to reach $57 billion by 2027…The report also predicts that adult-use cannabis will make up the majority of spending totaling $38.3 billion, while medical spending will reach $19.1 billion.
North America will continue to represent the largest spending volume, growing from $9.2 billion in 2017 to $47.3 billion in 2027, but due to the massive size of the market, the growth rates remain relatively low at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%.The largest growth is expected to occur within the Rest of World (RoW) markets, where spending is forecast to grow from $52 million in 2017 to $2.5 billion in 2027 for a CAGR of 47%.
As more medical programs come online outside North America and as the recreational market moves to overtake the medicinal market within North America, hundreds of thousands of jobs are expected to be created by legal marijuana over the new few years in the U.S. alone.
In terms of growth possibilities in an industry, opportunities like this are very rare.
