Legal recreational marijuana sales started in Washington in July 2014. The start of legal recreational marijuana sales was slow, with only a handful of stores opening. There are still less than half of the recreational marijuana stores open that were expected to, but the sales numbers keep climbing. According to the latest numbers out of Washington, Washington’s legal recreational marijuana industry is sell over one million dollars worth of recreational marijuana everyday. Per The Joint Blog:
There’s over $1 million in recreational cannabis sold each day in Washington State among the 142 outlets that are reporting sales figures, according to the Liquor Control Board (LCB).
According to the LCB (which will be renamed theLiquor and Cannabis Board on July 24th), there are 161 licensed recreational cannabis outlets throughout Washington State, with 142 reporting sales. On average, there is $1,243,926 in recreational cannabis sold each day, which results in roughly $311,000 in daily tax revenue. In total, there has been $205,917,611 in cannabis sold since legal sales began July 1st of 2014. This has resulted in $51,479,403 in taxes for the state.
With only 142 recreational stores open, and over 300 licenses allocated, I’d expect that number to continue to climb in the future. Even if current trends held steady, that would work out to roughly 438 million dollars worth of recreational marijuana sold per year. That’s a huge industry by any measure. One so large that other states should take notice, and try to follow in Washington’s footsteps, albeit with a better version of legalization compared to Washington’s model.
