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Weed Deliveries Likely To Go Through The Roof New Year’s Eve

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Steve Birr Vice Reporter
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The marijuana industry is expecting a massive boost in profits to ring in the new year due to a likely surge of weed deliveries on New Year’s Eve.

Home delivery of medical marijuana in California is legal in regions across the state and vendors, partnering with technology company Eaze, are seeing a spike in demand for weed around the holiday. Last year Eaze reported a 71 percent surge in medical marijuana deliveries on New Year’s Eve when compared with an average day during the year. New Year’s Day demand dipped slightly but still increased by 41 percent. Eaze partners with medical marijuana dispensaries and doctors in nearly 100 markets in California, serving as an intermediary for sales with more than 100,000 medical patients.

Experts cite family stress as part of the reason for an increase in demand around the holidays, but also argue it’s a reflection of changing perceptions of the substance as more states around the U.S. pass legalization. (RELATED: Study Shows Stoners Are Not Causing More Traffic Accidents)

“A big part of it is the normalization or marijuana,” Sheena Shiravi, a representative of Eaze, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “I think more and more people are realizing the benefits of it. We’ve been seeing our older demographic of consumers growing. You see more baby boomers coming online, the age range is growing and more females are coming online as well.”

Holidays throughout the year are marked with big increases in demand for weed. Marijuana deliveries skyrocketed on Dec. 23 by 23 percent when compared to yearly norms and jumped 6 percent Christmas Eve. The day before Thanksgiving proved a massive success for marijuana businesses, with sales increasing 71 percent. The demand was so high that marijuana dispensaries referred to the day as Green Wednesday, reports Forbes.

“Basically I think we see the big surges happening because of shifting perceptions of it and the fact that California passed it recreationally,” Shiravi told TheDCNF. “A lot of people that were on the fence about using it medicinally are a little bit more comfortable and are reading a little more about it.”

Proposition 64 passed with popular approval Election Day, legalizing marijuana for recreational use across the state. While implementation of a commercial marijuana market will take at least until 2018, the passage of the ballot is likely removing much of the remaining stigma over marijuana use in California, according to experts.

The delivery aspect of medical marijuana in California also appears to be cutting into alcohol sales in the state. Eaze surveyed over 5,000 medical marijuana patients in the state in October and 58 percent of respondents were replacing much of their alcohol use with weed.

Marijuana delivery sales are expected to drop after the New Year’s holiday and then stabilize. Eaze is expecting another spike in sales for the 420 marijuana holiday in April and a general increase over the summer months.

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