As if to prove the point: Hours after the Ohio vote, phones were already ringing with consumer inquiries at The Botanist dispensary’s Canton flagship and its four other Ohio locations, according to Kate Nelson, evp of Midwest and New England regions at parent company Acreage Holdings.
“Now that we’ve had a few years of our medical program in Ohio, the expansion to adult use seems less scary,” Nelson told Adweek. “The infrastructure is in place, and we expect a great deal of growth.”
The high-profile media and legislative attention gives the multistate operator a springboard to talk to a range of consumers, from the cannacurious to lapsed users and newbies. And given that no adult sales will take place in Ohio until September 2024—if there are no legislative take-backs or roadblocks—there’s plenty of time to educate the public about the category.
In the immediate future, expect marketers in the space to capitalize on the spotlight heading into a crucial sales season that will account for a sizable chunk of the anticipated $33.6 billion nationwide cannabis haul for 2023, per MJBiz. BDSA predicts $43 billion in sales by 2027, with much of the growth coming from newly legal Midwest and East Coast states.
And the significance of the day before Thanksgiving cannot be overstated: Last year’s Green Wednesday logged $116.4 million in single-day sales, a 16% increase from 2021 and second only to 4/20, the granddaddy of weed celebrations, per Akerna.
‘Entirely validating’
In an industry that has struggled for the past few years—via heavy tax burdens, product oversupply, price compression, scant investment and illicit competition, among other ills—the Ohio vote in particular feels “entirely validating,” according to Emily Paxhia, co-founder and managing partner of cannabis hedge fund Poseidon Investment Management.
The geography, where Ohio is a longtime bellwether for American politics, is also noteworthy, providing “an incredibly interesting litmus test in where we’re going next” as a canna-friendly country, Paxhia said.
Gen Z, the “cannabis-native generation,” drove the legalization vote in the seventh-most-populous state—86% of 18-to-24-year-olds voted for the ballot measure called Issue 2, per NBC News. That fact will likely make an impression on President Joe Biden and other candidates for the nation’s top office in 2024. (Issue 2 passed with 57% of the total vote).
