Green Wednesday...

 

Maybe you know about this?  I didn't.

Today is Green Wednesday: the second highest (pun intended) sales day for the cannabis industry.  A bit of history: The phenomenon started in the mid-2010s.  Cannabis retailers and delivery services noticed that sales on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving were unusually high.  Over time, as legalization expanded, dispensaries leaned into this trend; offering promotions, running events, and effectively turning it into a holiday.  This Thanksgiving, weed smokers are grateful for "Green Wednesday." 

"Green Wednesday is the second-largest holiday for cannabis behind April 20th," said Joyce Sinali, co-founder of the Cannabis Media Council, a trade group that seeks to improve the public perception of weed.

“Green Wednesday is not a real holiday,” said Jennifer Bartholomeo, a general manager of the Travel Agency, a New York dispensary chain.  “But if you think about it, you’re traveling home to see your family, extended family is visiting and everyone is taking a walk with their cousin.  And what do you think you’re doing on that walk?”

Whether junior relations are sneaking away from the gathering to smoke together or popping an edible to assuage their anxiety before they face the rest of the family, getting high on the 17th century feast day is an emergent 21st century tradition. 

“Green Wednesday is a relatively new term for a familiar phenomenon: Old friends get together in their hometown and party on the eve of Thanksgiving.  As cannabis products became legalized across the US in the mid-2010s, the industry started using the term in marketing to encourage friends to head to local dispensaries to get their fix," Sinali said. 

“We want folks to come and get nuanced, interesting products and take them to the dinner table for their Thanksgiving holiday,” Sinali said.

The ploy has worked: Sinali said about 10 to 20% of customers at dispensaries on Green Wednesday are first-time shoppers. 

“I think it’s a way for the younger generation –– and I mean, honestly, the older generation; everyone is smoking weed, whether they share that fact or not –– to have the family come together.”  * 

And now you know.  Plus, when you get the munchies, your Thanksgiving feast awaits.  ;-)  I have asthma, so I won't be smoking anything.

 

* Source: CNN