Our class discussion about the budding cannabis industry's impact on the wine industry peaked my interest for a few different reasons. Several months ago, I called Washington State my home where recreational marijuana consumption was legal and had already found its way into the daily lives of those living in Seattle. Neighborhood pot shops could be found easily throughout the city, each offering a different experience ranging from hole-in-the-way to whimsical and honestly, fancy. As other states passed laws legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana, the buzz surrounding the cannabis industry has only continued to grow.
In class this evening, the notion that the wine industry is not a supporter of the cannabis industry makes logical sense from a weed as a substitute for wine perspective, but it was not a worry that I had heard about prior (even as a Washingtonian wine drinker). Of those people and friends I know that consume wine/beer/spirits and marijuana, it has never been a question of trade off between the two products. If anything, my friends often saw the products as complimentary. Yes, maybe sometimes they would smoke a joint as a opposed to having another glass of wine but often, it was the opposite. A joint might lead to another drink or visa versa.
So, I did some digging after class and stumbled upon this NYT article on the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/dining/wine-marijuana-cannabis-industry.html
The article highlights some of the similarities between wine and marijuana, "like wine, marijuana is an agricultural product, and where it is grown can determine its character.". The piece goes on to mention that labor might be a place for competition between the two industries but that collaboration is a more likely scenario. I imagine that we will not see any of the well-established, large, family-owned wineries going into the cannabis industry, but it might be interesting to see if any new-world wines experiment in that direction.
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