Ask Our Experts 3/23/20: Consuming Cannabis Amid the Coronavirus
Q: What does the new normal in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic mean for cannabis consumers?
By New Frontier Data
A: Simply put, we are living in a time of unprecedented challenges. Likewise, the coronavirus is already affecting cannabis consumer culture and product demand.
In social settings, cannabis is often consumed communally, with consumers sharing joints and vapes, often using the same mouthpieces when consuming concentrates. With the coronavirus being highly contagious, public health concerns may transform social consumption from a shared experienced to more individualized forms. While concerns about the pandemic are not yet forecast to contract overall cannabis demand, it may increase demand for delivery services, and lead consumers to make larger, less frequent purchases rather than the more routine but fewer-dollar purchases more commonly seen previously.
There may also be distinct shifts established in both why and how consumers use cannabis products. Consumers regularly report using cannabis to manage stress, anxiety, and as a sleep aid. As dour news about the coronavirus and economy continues to proliferate, it seems likely that consumers will increasingly demand and employ cannabis as a palliative means for relief from compounding external pressures and stresses. Meanwhile, as more consumers are homebound for longer periods of time (especially if among children and older adults), combustible products may lose appeal. Thus is expected an increase in demand for noncombustible products including edibles, tinctures, and other infused products.
Some shifting usage patterns are anticipated among medical patients, also. While medical cannabis is essential for many patients suffering from MS, epilepsy, and other debilitating afflictions, there are large cross-sections of patients who let their medical registrations lapse when legally available adult-use markets opened. As example, the roll-out of California’s adult-use market in 2018 saw the state’s lists of registered patients drop significantly. Should patients’ motives for re-registration include relative advantages for access to cannabis, those recognized numbers will predictably swell again.
In a post-pandemic environment, medical-use programs provide further social benefits. Those otherwise lacking access to cannabis (and relief for their conditions) would be inclined to seek help from overburdened doctors or hospitals, further straining overtaxed systems. To whatever extent that patients would seek alternative relief from pharmaceuticals, such demand would exacerbate any related shortages throughout the medical pharmaceutical supply chain.
More broadly (and thus perhaps more dangerously), there is a recognized relationship between mental and physical stress and general health. To whatever extent that cannabis can relieve people’s stress and anxiety or improve their eating and sleeping habits, the more likely the benefits to their immune systems and mental health.
The full impact of the CONAVID-19 outbreak on the cannabis industry remains to be seen. However, just as public health officials advise, the public should not panic, but be prepared. That goes for cannabis consumers, too.
