You know a product trend has grown beyond fad once there is a national holiday named after it. August 8 was National CBD Day, and it came as the popularity of the cannabinoid is surging.
A recent Gallup poll found 14 percent of Americans use CBD products. The most popular reasons for using CBD are varied but pain (40 percent), anxiety (20 percent), and sleep (11 percent) make up the top three reasons. Twenty percent of Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 use CBD. Use with older groups consistently drops with only eight percent of seniors over 65 using CBD products.
Understandably, CBD use is most prominent in western states, where medicinal cannabis has been legal the longest. About 21 percent of residents in the west use CBD while only 11 percent of residents in the midwest and eastern regions do so. Thirteen percent of southerners use CBD products.
Although CBD users do not quite make up a majority, Gallup has found that overall CBD use is increasing. This finding also is backed by Headset, a leading cannabis data analytics firm. In a recent report entitled Understanding the CBD Market in State-Legal Cannabis, Headset cited a major increase in CBD Google search queries with a huge spike over the past two years.
Beyond the Gallup and Headset findings, others, including Maxim, are viewing CBD’s explosive growth through a more amusing lens. Google search queries for CBD are now more popular than Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé. Our own search reached the same conclusion as you can see from the picture below. The gold line represents the number of recent CBD searches on Google while the red and blue lines represent Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian respectively.
While we’re pretty sure Kim Kardashian and Queen Bey’s careers will be just fine, growing public interest in CBD actually has the chance to widen the popularity gap even further over the two megastars. Overall, 35 percent of Americans are currently not familiar with CBD products. However, younger generations are less likely to fall into this category, only 26 percent. Almost 50 percent of older Americans over 65 are not familiar with CBD products.
Increased CBD awareness is almost a certainty in the coming years. Industrial hemp, a main source of CBD products, was only legalized in the past year after Congress passed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (farm bill). Regulations are still being worked out by federal officials, but it’s a safe bet that there will be even more CBD Google searches, awareness, and customers by next National CBD Day.
