Legal recreational marijuana sales started in Colorado at the beginning of this year. Sales kept climbing and climbing until September, which saw the first decline in sales. The decline was minor, and is likely related to the fact that September was a slow tourist month for Colorado. According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, there were $31.6 million in recreational marijuana sales and $32.4 million in medical marijuana sales in September. That still brought in a lot of tax revenue. Per CNN:
Colorado brought in $7.2 million in taxes and fees from recreational and medical marijuana sales in September. That’s down from $7.7 million in August. Colorado’s Department of Revenue only publishes tax data and not total retail sales of marijuana.
Toni Fox, owner of Denver dispensary 3D Cannabis Center, is nonchalant. She expects the numbers to reflect slow sales for October too. But she said demand is likely to rebound when the snow starts to fall.
“Once the ski resorts open, sales will pick back up again,” she said.
The snow season in Colorado is right around the corner, and I’d expect to see a dramatic spike in sales. And if not, the sales number are still very strong. Enormous sums of money have been generated for the state’s coffers, thousands of jobs have been created, and local economies in Colorado have benefited from all of it. I can’t wait until legal recreational marijuana sales start where I live in Oregon so we can start doing the same.
