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Cannabis is entering the next phase of its evolution in America. Rescheduling has real bipartisan momentum while hemp products are available all over the country. The research, while slow and restrictive, is already starting to support many of the findings that patients and advocates have touted for years. What comes next is more access, more legitimacy, and a bigger audience than this industry has ever had.
A part of plant medicine going mainstream means that much of the discourse around it will be shaped by the public. This is a unique challenge because conversations about cannabis have always been held in private. Industry thought leaders and media outlets are doing their best to educate the broader audience on what cannabis is and what it can do. Bridging this gap is not only a complex task, but it also includes unraveling a lot of preconceived false notions. This is where a lot of comparisons to mainstream Consumer Packaged Goods are coming from.
These comparisons are constructive. Gummies and beverages are the rosetta stone for translating information about a plant that’s been undocumented and underground for generations into a language mainstream audiences can understand. They map into categories that people already know. With the volume of content that is being pumped out to service this knowledge gap, a narrative has been taking shape: the average cannabis consumer in America is eating and drinking their products. It’s a great story, it’s just not yet the reality of cannabis sales.
What The Sales Show
Where Is This Headed
None of this data makes the edibles narrative incorrect, it’s just too early in the sense that “early” often looks like inevitability from the inside. In the shorter term it’ll be additive, not substitutive. Non-inhalables will be the real growth story, just not yet.
The next real wave probably isn’t in a bottle. It’s the inhalable formats nobody’s talking about yet: new delivery methods, sharper flower experiences, hybrids that live somewhere between old-school smoke and new-school CPG. The renaissance ahead will expand how people use cannabis. It won’t erase how they already do.
Data: Hoodie Analytics, January–June 2026 U.S. retail sales.
