Surprising cities where people googling cannabis inquiries

By April 2021, seventeen states, two territories, and the District of Columbia had laws regulating cannabis for adult use. Additionally, Connecticut and Rhode Island appear poised to legalize adult cannabis, Louisiana has decriminalized marijuana possession, and Montana is building its own marketplace. These are big wins and they just keep going. According to a recent analysis by the cannabis marketing company Digital Third Coast, consumers want even more access, more convenience and more restrictions, at least when it comes to promoting cannabis.

Digital Third Coast analyzed Google searches in all 50 states and 34 of the largest US cities where cannabis is not yet fully legal. The analysis was rounded off with a survey of over 1,000 Americans who were asked to share their views on the legalization, use, and marketing of cannabis. The pursuit of legality expressed by respondents appeared to be centralized in the West, with Wyoming number one and North Dakota number two. West Virginia took a surprising third place, making it an outlier among its western counterparts, including Iowa and Nebraska, which rounded out the top 5.

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States with mixed legalities, which include medical programs, different laws governing CBD use, and in some cases decriminalized cannabis, rank lowest for “cannabis curiosity”. The Google search data showed great interest in legalizing people living in states where cannabis is already legal.

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The top 5 cities that include Google search terms like “state cannabis legalization” (Birmingham, AL, Charleston, SC, Cheyenne, WY, Nashville, TN, and Omaha, NE) are all places that have cannabis is completely illegal, but that’s not to stop the American cross-section of the Digital Third Coast from enjoying cannabis. According to their results, 60% of those surveyed said they had used cannabis. 92% of respondents supported legalization, with 45% claiming that the main reason for this support was the decision to use cannabis as a “matter of freedom or personal choice”. That was almost twice as many who named “medical reasons and palliative care” as the main motivation (25%).

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Not only did the majority of Google search results and US citizens surveyed point to overwhelming support for legalization, but one in three Americans wants cannabis to be sold in supermarkets, gas stations, and grocery stores. Seven out of 10 would like cannabis to be legalized at the federal level, which suggests significant acceptance of normalizing cannabis use and integrating it into daily life, as does the fact that 26% of respondents believe that cannabis dispensaries do so should not be opened near schools, places of worship, or residential areas.

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There were strong advocates setting 21 as the legal age for cannabis use, while 37% thought 18 years would be more appropriate. At the lower and upper ends of the scale there was significantly less agreement, only 7% advocating 25 as the appropriate legal age for use and 5% advocating reaching 16 years of age.

Digital Third Coast isn’t making big leaps in using their data to infer the future of cannabis legalization, and is passing the money on to lawmakers for good reason. With 81% of respondents saying that legalization would help society, lawmakers need to sit up and take action to keep the growing number of cannabis-positive ingredients happy.

This article originally appeared in the Green Market Report and was republished with permission.