A Toke and a Smile: Marijuana Sales May Surpass Soda by 2030

Marijuana is on its way to out-selling Coca-Cola in the United States, according to a recent study.

Bloomberg reports a study from research firm Cowen & Co found that legal cannabis sales are expected to reach $75 billion by the year 2030, which nearly eclipses the entire carbonated soft drink market for North America in 2017.

Since 1998, states have been gradually decriminalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use. Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Main, Vermont, Massachusetts and Washington D.C. allow it to be used in both forms while another 20 states have allowed for it to be used medically.

Cowen had previously predicted that the market for legal weed would be up to $50 billion by 2026, but that number now appears to be vastly underestimated.

"New forecasts suggest that the market is already that size," analyst Vivien Azer told Bloomberg on Wednesday.

But as weed sales go up, soda sales have been gradually on the decline in recent years. Beverage-Digest reports soft drink consumption his a 31-year low in the United States in 2016, and the market for soda in North America fell from $78.3 billion in 2016 to $76.4 billion in 2017.

Azer also noted that binge drinking alcoholic beverages has been on the decline in the eight states where recreational marijuana has been legalized, potentially pointing to pot taking a bite out of the alcohol industry as well.

"We have consistently argued that cannabis and alcohol are substitute social lubricants," Azer said.

Many celebrities have come down on either side of the marijuana usage debate. Charlize Theron said in a recent interview with E! News that she used to smoke pot and would be open to doing it again in the future.

"I was a wake-and-baker for most of my life," Theron said "I'm open to retrying it again because now there's all these different strains and you can be specific with it. And I'm actually really interested because I have really bad insomnia, and I'd much rather get off sleeping pills and figure out a strain that helps me sleep better. So when I have a moment, I'm actually doing that with my mom. My mom has really bad sleep too."

Paris Jackson, daughter of pop icon Michael Jackson, has also been seen lighting up a few joints. She even clapped back at critics calling her out when a video of her smoking made its way online.

"I know of a few parents that actually rely on this amazing organic medicine to keep their children alive since the alternative pharmaceutical drugs that doctors were shoving down their throats was basically killing the poor little ones but hey, to each his own," Jackson wrote in response to one fan who commented, "And what parent thinks its okay for their kid to smoke weed? Girl, you're better than this & you know it."