The trend is weed on weekdays and beer on weekends

Canadians like to drink. A 2017 World Health Organization report found that Canadians aged 15 and over drank 10 liters of pure alcohol per capita in 2016, 3.6 liters more than the world average. The United States wasn’t far behind with a per capita consumption of 9.3 liters, and Lithuania far outpaced the competition with an impressive 18.2 liters of pure alcohol per capita.

Pure alcohol is rather vague, so let’s go into more detail. According to statistics from Beer Canada, the average Canadian of legal drinking age consumed 210 cans of beer in 2018. That’s a lot of beer, especially considering that 20% of the country abstains from drinking alcohol. However, according to Beer Canada, the number represented a 1.2% decline from 2017, and national beer sales also fell 0.3%.

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Those are small numbers, but they underscore an important trend highlighted in a new industry report from Cowen and Co. that could potentially come to the U.S. too. In Canada’s first year of legal adult-use cannabis, domestic beer sales experienced their worst decline in six years. Domestic beer volume fell 3.9%, which is worse than the 3.0% decline in national beer volume.

Photo by Tim Bennett via Unsplash

This suggests that a new lifestyle trend is emerging in both Canada and the states where cannabis is legal in the US – weed on weekdays, beer and alcohol on weekends. As analysts at Cowen put it, consumers are also looking for better value for their money. In the past, cheap beer served as a relaxing alternative after a long day at work. Have a few beers, don’t get too drunk and relax.

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Cannabis appears to have replaced this lifestyle function for a significant portion of people living in legal marijuana jurisdictions. Cowen analysts emphasized that the severe decline in beer consumption and sales will only continue in Canada as many provinces roll out more marijuana products such as vaporizers, edibles and tinctures in the coming year.

Evidence of these trends also exists in states where marijuana is legal in the United States. A 2019 report from the Distilled Spirits Council reported that per capita beer sales in the legal marijuana states of Colorado, Washington and Oregon fell by 2.3% to 3.6% following the legalization of adult-use cannabis. While marijuana legalization at the federal level is still at least several years away, we should probably expect similar trends to continue across the United States if that happens.