Legal cannabis sales in the U.S. last year reached $6.7 billion, a growth of 30 percent, according to an ArcView Group market research report outlined by the International Business Times. The growth is faster than the dot-com boom of 2000.
Tom Adams, ArcView’s editor-in-chief, said that the figures are almost unprecedented in U.S. history. The firm expects the market to exceed $20 billion by 2021 with a 25 percent gross domestic growth rate, outpacing the 22 percent rate seen during the tech boom.
“The only consumer industry categories I’ve seen reach $5 billion in annual spending and then post anything like 25 [percent] compound annual growth in the next five years are cable television (19 [percent]) in the 1990s and the broadband internet (29 [percent]) in the 2000s,” he said in a Forbes report.
And although many cannabis industry professionals are concerned about how the incoming Donald Trump administration will affect the sector, ArcView’s chief executive Troy Dayton believes Trump will allow states to decide their own policies regarding legal cannabis sales.
“It’s one of the few things he has been consistent on,” Dayton said, noting that 21 percent of the total U.S. population lives in legal cannabis markets.
According to the report, ArcView has assisted investors in placing $91 million with 135 mostly private legal cannabis companies since 2013.