How Dry January became High January

Or, is it not a loophole at all, but in fact something entirely different: The elimination of an unhealthy habit for one that can be healthy?

The latter is the way the cannabis community positions it — “support your wellness goals,” reads one not-atypical cannabis come-on. But that’s not how it looks to Boston Children’s Hospital’s Christopher Landrigan, chief of the Division of General Pediatrics. “It’s hard to argue that the replacement is an improvement,” he said.

Either way, though, one thing is clear: Dry January is becoming High January.

With a growing number of people taking the Dry January and Damp January challenges, some dispensaries around the state said sales go up during the month, and some products — including THC-infused seltzers, are especially popular.

“They’re discreet, you can do it in a social gathering,” Sheila Fey, director of marketing for the Elevated Rootsdispensaries in Kingston and Halifax, said of the drinks. At her stores, sales of cannabis-infused beverages increase up to 50 percent in January, she said.

Dry January 2025 has arrived as alcohol is under assault. The surgeon general wants to slap cancer warnings on bottles. Headlines blaring its deleterious effect on the brain, inflammation, and weight seem to hit daily. The World Health Organization has declared that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.” Terms like “soberish” and “sober curious” have entered the lexicon.

There are ways other than cannabis to make it through Dry January, of course. You can turn to mocktails, ramp up the exercise or meditation, hang out with friends in settings that don’t need a buzz to ramp up the fun. But cannabis has serious momentum.“Daily marijuana use outpaces daily drinking in the US, a new study says,” read an AP headline from May. In 2023, meanwhile, a CivicScience survey found that more than one in five people doing Dry January were using cannabis instead of alcohol (compared with 6 percent who were using kombucha).

But the news about cannabis isn’t all good either. In October, an investigation by The New York Times was headlined, “As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms.” The drug, the Times reported, ”is widely seen as nonaddictive and safe. For some users, these assumptions are dangerously wrong.”

The drug’s largely positive framing stems from the early days of legalization, when it was for medical use only, and even then, only for the most serious diseases, such as cancer, said Vivien Azer, a veteran analyst of the cannabis, beverage, and tobacco industries, and now the CFO of Haven Health, a primary care built by and for LGBTQ+ people.

Reports of adverse effects — including stoned driving — notwithstanding, advocates say cannabis can help people get off opioids and reduce dependence on alcohol, and is good for stress relief and sleep. And now the trend of being “sober” (from alcohol) but also using cannabis has picked up a cool, West Coast-inspired name: “Cali-sober.”

Dry January started as an unsexy antidrinking campaign in the United Kingdom in the early 2010s, but now it’s become so on-trend that one estimate says that nearly one third of Americans planned to do some form of Dry January. (People eager to reduce drinking but not able to go full Dry January have introduced their own variations. Among the let’s-give-ourselves-some-wiggle-room options: Drinking only when out. Drinking only on special occasions. Drinking wine or beer but not hard liquor. Etc.)

What it all adds up to is that cannabis retailers see a market waiting to be plucked.

“Relax & unwind, without the hangover,” reads a blog post from the Elevated Roots dispensaries. The post is titled “High January” and features a graphic of a wine bottle and a glass in a red circle with a line slashing through it.

“Start your year on a high note” — wink, wink — reads a sign in Apex Noir, a downtown dispensary.

High January is even on the yoga mat. Last Sunday, Dinner At Mary’s, a cannabis-focused event company, celebrated High January with a slow-flow yoga class and complimentary Levia brand cannabis-infused seltzer (served before the downward dogs start, but available throughout the class). “I’ve been Cali sober for going on a year,” said owner Sam Kanter.

Megan Anderson, a licensed mental health counselor in Plymouth, said shehas suggested cannabis to some clients who’ve tried but failed to keep Dry January resolutions.

“They are doing it with a spouse or a partner, and they get a couple of days in and something happens and they fall off the wagon and go back to old habits,” she said.

“Have you thought about other things that might be able to keep you on track?” she’ll ask, and then bring up cannabis.

Many are eager once she’s broached the subject, she said. But even though it’s legal, it still carries a stigma in some circles, and a number of clients are afraid to talk with their doctors about it. “They say they don’t want to feel judged,” she said.

Alas, cannabis doesn’t work for everyone who wants to use it. A nurse practitioner in her late 40s said she tried to use THC-infused seltzers to do a Dry January spinoff — “Sober October” — but rather than give her the social buzz she yearned for, the drink left her either tired or paranoid or both.

The nurse, who asked for anonymity because she didn’t want people to know she’d had a problem cutting back on alcohol, recalled a dinner at an Italian restaurant with friends. She spent the evening worried that everyone knew she’d guzzled the drink ahead of time. “I’d rather be stone cold sober,” she thought.

Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.