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Toilet paper, hand sanitizer and food aren’t the only things flying off the shelves amid the coronavirus scare in Southern California. Marijuana is the latest addition to the consumer stockpile.
Industry professionals are enjoying the spike in sales, which has prompted one proprietor to buy two used Priuses in the past week as deliveries soar. He said he is planning to buy three more in case his dispensaries are ordered shut and he has to transition his shop workers to drivers.
Nothing in the brief history of legal marijuana has ever spurred sales quite like coronavirus preppers, and now a week after its record day, the industry looks back at a wild run of days and wonders what the future holds.
Last Monday, it quickly became apparent that, as word of pending lockdown orders started to spread across California, consumers were rushing to dispensaries. Unsure of what would happen to the cannabis supply chain in that moment, they bought huge amounts of pot.
“Every single day has been busier than 4/20,” an employee at People’s OC dispensary in Santa Ana told L.A. Weekly.
One company rushed to expand its delivery fleet. Another has seen sales triple. The global coronavirus pandemic has left millions of people locked out of bars, restaurants and theaters, but it’s been an unexpected boost for some U.S. pot shops.
Marijuana users in the nation’s largest legal pot shop, California, and elsewhere are on a buying binge, as they stock up for potential quarantines or simply light up in search of relief during anxious times and government lockdowns. New York, San Francisco and Palm Springs, California, are among the cities labeling dispensaries “essential” businesses that can remain open during virus lockdowns, in some cases with limitations.
Sales increases also are being witnessed in Colorado and Washington, according to cannabis data company Headset.
Dispensaries, meanwhile, have been quick to accommodate virus-wary customers, boosting delivery and pickup options.
