The global industrial hemp market is projected to be worth more than $12 billion by the year 2028. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed the explosion of CBD products onto the market, not to mention cannabis products in places where recreational use has been legalized.
Whether you are a small business owner in the cannabis industry or simply a marijuana enthusiast, it can be useful to get a sense of the growing hemp industry in the US.
The polling is clear that the American people overwhelmingly believe that cannabis should be legalized. Not only can legalizing cannabis allow medical patients and recreational users the opportunity to partake in marijuana without fearing the hammer of the law, but the cannabis industry also produces tens of thousands of jobs in an otherwise uncertain economy.
Are you wondering what you should know about the cannabis market? Let’s dive in and take a look at the numbers that matter.
Cannabis Industry Stats
Did you know that two-thirds of Americans think that cannabis should be legalized? That’s pretty incredible when you compare it to the fact that only 12% of the population thought the plant should be legalized back in 1969. In the span of 50 years, American public opinion about marijuana has done an about-face.
There are 33 states in the US that have legalized cannabis for medical uses. In each of these states, there are different laws about what conditions you can use marijuana to treat.
Recreational use of marijuana is now legal in eighteen states as well as Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the District of Columbia. It is projected that sales of legal cannabis will reach $22 billion by the year 2022. According to some studies, sales of recreational cannabis will surpass medical sales sometime in the next two years.
It is projected that the cannabis market will be worth $3.6 billion by the year 2027.
Cannabis Market Dispensary Stats
As of 2020, there are more than 200,000 full-time cannabis jobs. The state that has the highest number of open dispensaries is Colorado, with a whopping 515 stores. Ohio comes in second place, and Michigan and California have the highest number of cannabis patients compared to the rest of the US.
On average, it costs about $1.92 million a year to operate a dispensary. While this might sound steep, it’s worth noting that the average income of dispensaries is about $3 million a year. This means that the average dispensary is doing a lot better than the average small business owner, of which only 9% report an annual revenue of more than $1 million.
The salary of cannabis workers is also higher than the US median salary, with a 10.7% advantage over the national median. For workers in the cannabis industry, the median salary is $58,511. The US median salary, by comparison, is only $52,863 annually.
Even though the legal cannabis market is booming, the black market still dominates the world of marijuana sales. Some sources claim that 87% of the total sales revenue of cannabis comes from illicit sales. With $6.2 billion in legal sales, this means that $46 billion is being exchanged outside the letter of the law.
CBD Market Stats
The other major player in the world of the cannabis market is CBD. CBD has exploded in popularity since the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, which legalized the production and sale of industrial hemp at the federal level. A 2019 Gallup poll found that only one year after this legislation was passed, one out of seven Americans used CBD products.
People use CBD for a wide variety of issues, including anxiety, depression, skin conditions, pain, inflammation, and sleep problems. At this point, the FDA has only approved one medication that has CBD in it, which is prescribed to people with specific rare forms of epilepsy.
There is a lot of optimism about CBD and its potential medical benefits because it doesn’t have the same mind altering effects that marijuana’s dominant cannabinoid, THC, has. This means that medical patients can reap the benefits without getting high.
The states with the top sales for CBD in the US are California, Florida, and New York. The amount of farmland devoted to hemp in the United States increased tremendously between 2017 and 2018, with 25,713 acres and 78,176 acres respectively.
Younger people are more likely to use CBD than older people in the US. The most likely age demographic to use CBD are Americans between the ages of 18 and 29, with people over the age of 65 being the least likely to use it.
40% of people who purchase CBD products buy them from a dispensary, while 34% purchase them from retail stores. Online retailers account for 27% of purchases and 12% are bought from another source entirely.
The market value of the CBD market in the US was just over $4 billion in 2019. By 2025, the value is expected to top $25 billion.
There’s also an increasing interest in cannabinoids other than THC and CBD. If you’re looking for a source of wholesale hemp-based products, follow this link to learn more about GVB Biopharma.
Business Ownership in the Hemp Industry: Is It Right for You?
As you can see, articles claiming that the “hemp boom is over” are likely not taking a look at the numbers. The cannabis market is growing impressively in the US both when it comes to cannabis as well as CBD products. With the public increasingly inclined to say that cannabis should be legalized and people catching on to the many benefits of the plant, we can hope to see more states legalize the growth and sale of cannabis in the coming years.
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