How To Win In Cannabis? Go Low (Dose)
John Moore (The Grove Space) on why quality, low dose, and social consumption in cannabis are moving hand-in-hand
John Moore is CEO of The Grove Space is a cannabis events company focused on providing anything from cannabis-friendly venues to full event production services for cannabis brands. The Grove Space hosts a variety of ticketed events for attendees through When You Know Events at wenyuno.com.
We sat down to follow up on his thoughts on social consumption to learn more about how products might evolve to capitalize on a social cannabis future.
“You can see a real need for lower dose products to enable a social future for cannabis.”
You’re obviously quite exposed to how people are using cannabis socially through The Grove Space. What are you seeing that’s interesting as we head into 2020?
Cannabis is becoming more social, both in how it’s used and how legislation is being written. A lot of brands are still built around the preexisting stereotype that people just want to use cannabis to get high.
But, based on what we’ve seen at events, working with different groups, and through the research we’ve done, getting high is actually not even in the top five most common use cases for cannabis. People are using it for a variety of reasons — to relax, for athletics — and getting high falls lower than you’d expect. Brands are going to need to shift how they’re projecting themselves to the market. They just want to see that the market is ready.
You’ve mentioned before how there’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg phenomena between dosage and social use. Can you elaborate on that?
Edible and drinkable products now, especially in Colorado, are dosed at 10 milligrams, if not more. This totally ignores the significant research that shows a majority of people start dealing with social paranoia and other adverse effects at just five milligrams.
Meanwhile, we’ve done some primary research ourselves. When people are consuming in a social environment, they report that they enjoy having three to five “ways to consume” or “doses”. It’s easiest to draw a parallel to alcohol and bar consumption — when you go out, you’re not just having one drink or, as it is in the edibles world, quite literally a sip of a drink.
Couple these two factors together, alongside other consumption methods like smoking and vaping. You can see a real need for lower dose products to enable a social future for cannabis.
That’s a compelling rationale. So what’s holding things back here? Why are things dosed higher than what might make sense?
Early on in cannabis legalization and probably to this day, quality is measured relative to potency. You saw a similar phenomena early on in alcohol during and post-Prohibition with things like moonshine.
But today, it’s not often that people are looking for wine based on the percentage of alcohol. It’s usually not even a main consideration. People are thinking about different things like flavor profiles, smell, taste, effect, etc. So you could expect things like that to be the drivers in cannabis consumer decision making as well.
Are any brands moving towards a new definition of quality alongside lower dose products?
Things are changing a bit already. You’re starting to see designer products — like Coda Signature with really, really well done chocolate, or Lord Jones in the CBD world with absolutely delicious gummies and other edibles. Lower dosage is almost self-fulfilling when an edible brand starts going down this path towards quality. Why make something truly delicious when you can only have one bite, or risk a really negative experience when you eat all of it?
Quality, dosage and social consumption all are going to move in lock-step. Low dosage can’t truly emerge until we are measuring by other metrics for quality, but it’s hard to develop those metrics without experimenting on dosage.
That said, brands should likely want lower dose. THC is a primary input, so it drives a huge piece of cost. If there’s less THC in products, people will likely buy more — would you rather sell ten 1 milligram drinks, or one 10 milligram?
What are the implications for consumer behavior? Do we need a lot to change there?
There’s a shift coming there as well. Consumers will need to learn they can eat the whole bag of micro-dose gummies. It’s just not something consumers do right now. I’d love to see an edibles brand with the tagline “You can eat the whole thing” — it would be so radically different than the way people have historically approached the consumer.
But there’s a secondary implication that’s important as well. As lower dose products take hold and people are consuming in a social environment, it opens up the ability to share and try multiple products. A barrier to building a brand now is just this lack of shareability — people going to events or hanging with friends really can only try one or two products in a given timeframe.
You also might see things like CBD only products take a larger secondary role in social settings. We’ve seen attendees at our events gravitate to things like low dose flower and CBD-only prerolls as ways to stay socially involved without increasing intoxication further, like having a tonic water at a bar.
What else is holding back low dosage and social consumption? What should we expect in the long-term?
Obviously, onset has historically been a challenge within edibles. If you’re waiting an hour for something to take effect, it becomes intimidating to consume more comfortably. Brands are now pushing hard into faster acting means of edible THC. Beverages have been a good vehicle on this front, as some of the technology challenges have led development into forms for faster digestion and overall bio-availability.
There’s also some technology hurdles in terms of testing low dose products. When you need to test for variance, it can be more difficult to see exactly what your variance might be per unit. We’re seeing some manufacturers do larger runs to address this in some ways.
Finally, there’s the long-standing belief from some brands and dispensaries that the consumer isn’t ready yet for low dose products. But, digging into sales trends, the data doesn’t seem to back this up. Sales in microdose products under 2.5 milligrams are up 108%, while edibles of 10 milligrams or more have grown only 28%.
Looking forward, the number one driver for purchasing decisions within cannabis will be trust and mindshare. There’s an opportunity for brands and retailers to build this now, alongside social experiences, that prove out in long-term success.
At Cannablurbs, we’re excited to share the varied perspectives of different leaders across the industry through interviews and Guest Articles. If you’re active in cannabis and think you have a strong viewpoint to share, shoot us an email to talk about collaborating.
