North America Cannabis: For all the talk of cannibalizing alcohol, cannabis is far from booming

Research evidence excerpt

North America Cannabis: For all the talk of cannibalizing alcohol, cannabis is far from booming

25 June 2026

North America Cannabis

North America Cannabis: For all the talk of cannibalizing alcohol,

cannabis is far from booming

With our alcohol hat on, the US cyclical vs. structural debate for US alcohol continues to Nadine Sarwat, CFA

+44 20 7676 6849 dominate. One of the views on the structural side of the debate is that the rise of legal

nadine.sarwat@bernsteinsg.com cannabis is cannibalizing alcohol volumes, as consumers switch their ‘psychoactive

substance’ dollars away from alcohol to cannabis, driving declines in per capita alcohol

Matthew Cheung consumption. Yet with our cannabis hat on, while cannabis sales are higher today than pre-

+44 20 7676 6809

matthew.cheung@bernsteinsg.com COVID, we are hardly seeing a boom in sales.

Canadian cannabis continues to see slow and steady growth. On a 3m trailing basis,

sales were up 8% YoY in Mar-26 according to Statistics Canada. This is a sequential

improvement from the flat growth seen in mid-24, but is still a significant deceleration

from 2022 and 2023. By province, consumption per capita continues to be strongest in

Canadian Prairies and weakest in Quebec. By product type, extracts continue to gain share

at the expense of dried cannabis.

But many US states are now seeing declining cannabis sales, despite (on average)

stable pricing. According to Headset data, only three tracked states saw solidly positive

YoY growth in cannabis sales in the last 3mths: Ohio (+23%), New York (+18%) and Florida

(+4%). In the case of Ohio and New York, the states benefited from adult-use cannabis

sales starting relatively recently. Maryland, Missouri and Massachusetts saw cannabis sales

broadly stable YoY.