While it’s too early to report state and national cannabis sales figures for April 20, social listening data from Chicago-based research firm The Brightfield Group illustrates how much people enjoyed Tweeting about weed last Monday during the unofficial stoner holiday.
Brightfield Group, founded in 2015 to provide market data and insights for the CBD and THC sectors, is focusing more attention on real-time data on cannabis sales and consumption during these times of physical distancing.
While it’s not entirely less clear to any of us what the world – much less how much weed we are smoking – will look like three months from now, Brightfield’s free interactive dashboard showcases cannabis-based topics and products people are talking about over social media organized by date, product type and category.
What do the social analytics tell us about pot purchases in the age of coronavirus restrictions?
“We observed a boom in illicit sales in California in particular, as people began stocking up to mitigate against anxiety and boredom,” said analyst Andy Seeger. “There is also a recentering of medical access and patient access, because everything is tied to healthcare.
Seeger added that in March, the number of cannabis transactions in Illinois were down while the average amount sold per transaction was up. Not surprisingly, there is also considerably fewer sales to out-of-state customers.
