Authorized gross sales of marijuana in Colorado topped $2.1 billion in 2020 in response to regulators, the very best determine recorded since gross sales of leisure hashish started within the state in 2014. Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) launched its 2020 Regulated Marijuana Market Replace final week, revealing sturdy retail gross sales fueled partly by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“That is the primary to point out the impacts of COVID-19 on Colorado’s authorized industrial marijuana business utilizing the state’s METRC knowledge,” MED senior director Dominique Mendiola said in a press launch on December 23. “Colorado noticed probably the most marijuana gross sales ever in 2020, and it is vital to offer the general public with this stage of subtle evaluation to know the year-over-year tendencies of this business.”
Regulated gross sales of marijuana topped $2.1 billion in 2020, the very best determine recorded since authorized … [+]
getty
Mixed gross sales of medical marijuana and adult-use hashish totaled $2.19 billion final yr, a rise of 25.3% over 2019, in response to the report. Leisure marijuana gross sales had been additionally the very best ever, with the state’s adult-use hashish retailers ringing up $1.75 billion price of purchases in 2020, a rise of 24.1% over the earlier yr.
MED reported that whereas a rise in adult-use marijuana gross sales had been foreseen by state regulators, “a rise in medical marijuana gross sales was sudden.” Gross sales of medicinal hashish rose 30.7% to $442.5 million in 2020, the primary vital enhance of medical marijuana gross sales since 2016.
Hashish And Covid-19
Gross sales of each adult-use hashish and medical marijuana seem to have benefitted from the Covid-19 pandemic that first swept the nation in 2020. State officers designated medical marijuana dispensaries as important companies, permitting the retailers to proceed serving sufferers all through mandated lockdowns. And after a quick interval of being restricted to curbside pickup, leisure marijuana retailers had been allowed to reopen to prospects offered they instituted social distancing protocols.
Noting that leisure venues and social gathering spots had been closed to assist stem the unfold of the novel coronavirus, Wanda James, co-owner of the Merely Pure hashish dispensary, advised the Denver Submit that many individuals thought-about utilizing marijuana to be a great way to loosen up and unwind from the stress of the pandemic.
“What a grand factor to have occurred,” James said earlier this yr. “I’m glad in a state like Colorado folks might legally select a plant to assist them with their anxieties or boredom or artistic blocks. I’m glad they’d a selection in addition to alcohol.”
James additionally famous that as a Black-owned enterprise, Merely Pure benefitted from the general public response to the killing of George Floyd by the hands of Minneapolis police in Could of final yr.
“The uptick in those that had been trying to assist a Black-owned enterprise after the George Floyd homicide was by far the driving drive that pushed Merely Pure over the opposite dispensaries,” she stated.
Hashish Flower Regains Market Dominance
Colorado marijuana regulators additionally famous of their report that gross sales of hashish flower within the state had rebounded after years of dropping market share to marijuana concentrates. Though hashish flower has been the most well-liked class of marijuana merchandise since 2014, every year flower gross sales have misplaced market share whereas gross sales of concentrates and marijuana edibles elevated. In 2020, nevertheless, hashish flower gross sales rebounded, in response to state knowledge.
Hashish flower’s market share elevated in Colorado for the primary time in 2020.
getty
“Knowledge from 2020 represents the primary yr wherein Flower has elevated in market share in comparison with the earlier yr, growing from 53.9 p.c of all MMJ gross sales to 58.9 p.c, and from 46.8 p.c of all AUMJ gross sales to 49.8 p.c,” MED wrote in its report. “Knowledge exhibits a rise in each flower value and amount bought in 2020.”
The rise in hashish flower market share got here on the expense of marijuana concentrates, which dropped from 32.4 p.c to 30.1 p.c, and edibles, which noticed a market share drop of 0.4 p.c. Regulators cited an elevated availability of hashish flower and lung accidents attributed to vaping merchandise in 2019 as attainable causes for the rise in market share for hashish flower.
