Black Friday Becomes 'Green Friday' for Marijuana Shops in US

Marijuana stores in the US are hoping to benefit from the Black Friday buzz by renaming the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza "Green Friday".

Cannabis has been legalised in several US states in recent years, including Colorado and California, and hundreds of shops selling the herb in various forms have sprung up.

For Colorado dispensaries it will be their first holiday season since recreational marijuana was legalised and many shops are already lining up their Green Friday deals to entice customers.

"We have really high expectations," Ryan Fox, owner of the marijuana shop Grass Station in Denver, told Bloomberg News. "Now we've got the legal means for people to give marijuana as a gift, and that's never really been something that was feasible in the past."

The Grass Station will be offering one ounce of marijuana for $50 (£32) for its first 16 customers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a price five-times cheaper than current market prices.

But is the Green Friday idea gaining any traction or is it simply a half-baked marketing ploy? According to Fox, who used to sell medical marijuana before it was fully legalised, his biggest sales of the year usually fell on or around Thanksgiving.

The budding market still has a way to go to catch up with traditional retailers in capitalising on the Black Friday sales rush.

Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver, claims that customers will continue to buy cannabis no matter what the occasion.

"Christmas sales, day-after-Thanksgiving sales, your-family-is-in-town-and-you-need-something-to-get-you-through sales?" Kamin said.

"None of that would surprise me now that the industry has come out into the open. I would expect to see the industry behaving like any others to the extent that it can."