Report: Global Cannabis Industry Could Soon Reach $194 Billion

When the International Cannabis Business Conference held its first event just over four years ago, not many were thinking about the global marijuana market. At that time, only two U.S. states had implemented legalization and Uruguay was still working out the details of its regulatory structure. An international event seemed a bit ahead of it’s time to a lot of industry observers.

Today, a lot of the world has caught up to the ICBC in realizing that there is indeed a global cannabis industry, a business sector that will only continue growing over the coming years. According to a new report from the Bank of Montreal, the global cannabis industry could be getting close to a nearly $200 billion market within the next decade, as the Financial Post reported:

The potential of the global cannabis industry is so vast that it could eventually make the sky-high valuations of some Canadian licensed producers look like bargains, according to a new report from Bank of Montreal.

In the report, the bank’s cannabis sector analysts, Tamy Chen and Peter Sklar, sought to determine just how big the total addressable market Canadian producers will be competing for in the coming years, one that doesn’t stop at Canada’s borders.

Assuming a blue-sky scenario in which the U.S. and all 28 countries in the EU legalize marijuana for both recreational and medical use — and in which Latin America allows the medical use of cannabis — they project that in seven years the market could reach $194 billion, a number that significantly dwarfs the $5.9 billion in potential revenue they anticipate will be generated by the Canadian medical and recreational markets.

In four years, we may look back at the fact that only two nations (Uruguay and Canada) had legalized cannabis as a rather quaint time for the industry. With the UK starting a medical cannabis program this month and Mexico’s Supreme Court issuing a favorable ruling against prohibition, it is practical to expect that we’ll see more positive international news in the near future and beyond. Canadian companies are already effectively taking advantage of emerging international markets. Will the rest of the world catch up?

Learn the latest about the cannabis industry and network with top investors, entrepreneurs, and advocates from around the world at the upcoming International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco, California, on February 7-8, 2019. Early-bird pricing ends on January 18th. After San Francisco, the ICBC will be traveling across the pond to Barcelona for a special event with Spannabis on March 14th and returning to Berlin from March 31st to April 2nd.