Marijuana sales in Colorado have exceeded $6 billion since the state became the first in the country to let adults purchase retail pot from licensed shops, regulators announced Tuesday.
Colorado’s dispensaries reported nearly $1.55 billion in combined medical and recreational marijuana sales during the last calendar year, besting the previous annual record of roughly $1.51 billion set in 2017, the state’s Department of Revenue said in a news release.
All told, Colorado’s permitted pot shops have reported more than $6 billion in combined medical and recreational sales in the five years since establishing the nation’s first retail marijuana industry, the announcement said.
Coloradans cast ballots to legalize the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana in 2000 and 2012, respectively, and the latter vote resulted in the country’s premier retail dispensaries opening their doors on Jan. 1, 2014.
For the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2018, Colorado’s dispensaries sold $332 million worth of medical marijuana and $1.21 billion worth of recreational marijuana, according to the state’s latest statistics.
Taxed and sold at different rates, the medical and recreational marijuana sales combined brought in over $266.5 million worth of revenue for Colorado during 2018, the state added.
Since 2014, Colorado has reaped a total of $927 million from marijuana-related taxes and fees, the announcement said.
The number of dispensaries licensed by Colorado to sell recreational marijuana has swelled from around three dozen in early 2014, to 550 as of earlier this month.
Thirty-three states have passed laws legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana to varying degrees, starting with California in 1996, flying in the face of federal prohibition enacted decades earlier. Only 10 have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, however, including six that followed Colorado by regulating and taxing sales.
Marijuana is categorized as a Schedule 1 drug under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, placing the plant alongside heroin in a class reserved for drugs deemed prone to abuse and lacking medical value. Multiple bills pending on Capitol Hill would effectively end federal marijuana prohibition by either removing it from the government’s list of controlled substances or rescheduling it under the CSA.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.