As the spread of COVID-19 continues, people are stocking up on some supplies. The “new normal” means avoiding crowds, staying at home as much as possible, and working from home. As you might imagine, this has caused supply chains to get stressed, leading to shortages of some products. Some are inexplicable, like toilet paper. Some are understandable, like disinfecting wipes. In the case of medications, many insurance providers only allow you to get a 30-day supply. Luckily with dispensaries, that’s not quite the case. But we are seeing a surge in sales for cannabis across the country.
While “prepping” usually entails stocking up on absolute essentials, for many, cannabis IS a vital medicine. More states have medical marijuana laws, but recreational customers are also anticipating weeks of social distancing, leading to the single biggest day of cannabis sales on record, reports Cannabis Now. The data was drawn from Weedmaps and Headset, showing March 16 was the single biggest sales day for the dispensaries providing that data.
How much did sales jump? Over the weekend, the bump was around 40%. On Monday that number climbed to 251% — although this is just from Weedmaps. Headset’s numbers are a bit more conservative, more around 100% in some cases. Still, an interesting tidbit is that edibles are seeing a boost in sales. This makes a lot of sense and is good advice for anyone looking for cannabis during the coronavirus crisis. The virus attacks the lung with devastating force.
In fact, the insidious thing about this novel coronavirus is that the lungs are aggressively attacked, and some patients are recovering but left with damaged lung tissue, and some are reporting a 20-30% reduction in lung capacity. If you have a previous condition, it gets much worse. Some in Italy report that people with pre-existing conditions were “99% likely” to die from COVID-19. Patients with previous encounters with pneumonia are at risk, but so are lifelong smokers who have already diminished their lung capacity. Sadly, that also includes cannabis smokers, especially if your smoke of choice happens to be blunts and joints.
Also remember that counterfeit vapes didn’t harm people with noxious chemicals in the body itself, but attacked the lungs. The materials, when heated, in the fakes would damage the lungs, sometimes with lethal consequences. If you were using vapes with crappy materials, you could have been damaging your lungs for a while and not really know about it without something like a lung capacity test. No one gets those in a routine exam, do they? So, if someone with reduced lung capacity were to get hit with coronavirus it could be that much more dangerous for them.
The situation is changing daily, but expect dispensaries to be actively selling for as long as they can. Legally it may be tricky for them to implement curbside delivery, or delivery at all, but social distancing rules might be implemented instead. A shop might only allow a certain number of people in at once, and even have budtenders stand back from customers, or wear masks. This could be the new normal for a while, but there’s no real need to rush the local cannabis dispensary just yet.
