The cannabis market grew to $9 billion in 2017, and the estimates for 2018 are quite a bit higher!
Indeed, when it comes to projections, no sector of the economy currently has a rosier outlook than the burgeoning cannabis industry.
The latest report from ArcView Market Research– “U.S. Legal Cannabis: Driving $40 Billion Economic Output” clearly sums up the optimism of its findings.
The robust potential for growth in the industry is neatly reshaping the whole economy, likely to employ more than 400,000 by 2021. This has sparked a coinciding boom in cannabis media.
This proliferation of marijuana media comes as the majority of Americans now support legalization of weed. Thirty states and the District of Columbia currently have laws broadly legalizing marijuana in some form. Nearly, eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted the most expansive laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Recreational-use of marijuana in California kicked off on 1 January, 2018 and its retail sales in Massachusetts are expected to start later this year in July.
The media seems to have grown up in recent years as the legal status of cannabis gains momentum. Once plagued dope jokes about the pot buddy film Cheech & Chong, major publications are now beginning to investigate the facts and culture of the legal content industry. In fact, marijuana’s place in mainstream media has evolved into a far more serious discussion and journalists are attempting to explore the cultural, social political, medicinal and financial implications of this booming market.
Several nationally-read newspapers and magazines have devoted plenty of ink to the cannabis industry. CNN, CNBC and MSNBC have all produced recent series focused on the industry and in 2014, The New York Times endorsed marijuana legalization and later ran a full-page ad for the world’s largest online resource- Leafly for reviewing marijuana strains, products and dispensaries.
Of course, this media attention for marijuana is nothing new. The progression of cannabis legalization has been a mainstay of their focus since the successful 2012 campaigns in Colorado and Washington. Also, the famous New York-based monthly magazine High Timeshas been the voice of the marijuana counterculture since its inception more than 40 years ago, is still going strong.
New print and online publications focused on cannabis and marijuana news and culture like SF Evergreen are popping up while older outlets are hiring people and strengthening presence.
As described by LIFE Magazine described a cultural moment in which pot seemed to be taking over: readily available, encouraged by popular music, not merely a drug but the symbol of a revolution.
It’s well past time for a revolution of this momentum to have media dedicated to it, who needs to figure out how to write about “today’s weed”.
There’s still a lot to talk about!
