A new study has found that marijuana legislation has not hurt alcohol sales in the last few years since Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State began allowing legal marijuana sales.
The study, conducted by an alcohol trade association called the Distilled Spirits Council, examined alcohol tax and shipment data before and after legalization to determine whether cannabis reform impacted sales of spirits, beer or wine in legal states.
“Simply put, the data show there has been no impact on spirits sales from recreational marijuana legalization,” said the council’s chief economist, David Ozgo.
“We now have four years of retail recreational marijuana sales history in Colorado and Washington state, and three years in Oregon, and each of these markets remain robust for spirits sales,” he added. “We did this study because there is a lot of misinformation circulating about the impact of recreational marijuana legalization on distilled spirits and the wider alcohol market.”
The study found that per capita spirits sales saw a slight increase in post-legalization years, which was consistent with national trends. Sales had jumped 7.6 percent in Colorado, 5.4 percent in Washington and 3.6 percent in Oregon.
