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3. During economic downtime, people still get sick and still need medicine and other remedies. People need food. People need clothing. If anything, more time is spent in the home.
4. During economic downtime, the alcohol industry tends to not suffer as much. There are many articles and published papers to demonstrate this that you can look up but here is one such source that demonstrates the alcohol industry is “recession proof”.
5. Similar to alcohol sales, snack food sales and produce all do well as families eat out less and cook at home. Edibles, beverages, and cooking with marijuana and hemp are significant market segments that are only growing. And not to be too stereotypical but there is a rumored correlation between the munchies and cannabis use … and this entrepreneurial Girl Scout took full advantage of this recently by selling over 300 boxes of cookies in just six hours outside of a legal dispensary in San Diego.
6. As for inflation, land is a fixed asset and cannabis are plants that yield seeds for future harvests and the plants can also be cloned. Yes, labour and operational costs from seed to customer will apply pressure but much of the process is unskilled and automated. Also, the black market price acts somewhat as a price ceiling. Many law abiding people are willing to pay a premium for a guaranteed safe untainted supply where the revenues earned go back into the business and not to fund other black market related activities. But there is always a price point where people will switch to the black market or to a legal substitute (alcohol for example).
Inflation is not always the enemy of progress that some have led you to believe. Without inflation, an economy cannot grow and wages remain stagnant. Some Economists may say that resources are sitting idle and therefore wasted. Unexpected changes to the rate of inflation may contribute to market volatility. How many times did the Dow Jones plummet when the inflation rate came in relatively unchanged and exactly in line with expectations? This is a good reference on explaining inflation and why it is not always bad.
Marijuana and hemp are typically self-contained domestic markets – international events have little impact. For example, a European crisis has little impact on the supply and demand of Cannabis within California. There are no foreign currencies or tariffs to worry about that would materially affect domestic supply and demand, and so forth.