Colorado’s cannabis market has jumped 20% this year

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Colorado continues to have a strong cannabis industry, and it’s about to get even stronger

From a broad perspective, this has been a good year for the cannabis industry, with several states seeing their legal marijuana market grow significantly. In Colorado, the month of June hit records in retail sales, reporting a total of $198 million worth in marijuana and its derivatives, according to the Department of Revenue’s Marijuana Enforcement Division. In a month-over-month comparison, cannabis sales for recreational purposes grew around 6% to $158 million, which also broke the record of $149 million set in May.

The same story holds for medical marijuana dispensaries, which reported a total of $40.7 million in sales during June, allowing the year-to-date sales to pass the $207 million mark. Adult-sales count for the most part of the legal marijuana market, with customers spending more than $771 million through the first six months of 2020, which most likely already crushed the $1 billion mark in July, although those figures have not been made public yet.

Compared to cannabis sales in 2019, sales this year have increased by 19.5% and, if this trend continues along the same course, Colorado’s cannabis market might hit the $2-billion mark this year after smashing the $1.75-billion mark hit last year. According to an analysis made by a Colorado-based cannabis research firm BDSA, continuous growth seems to be related to an increase in spending per capita. The firm noted in a recent blog post that per capita spending in Colorado has increased from $64 back in 2013 to $290 in 2019. “A significant driver of this growth was long-time cannabis buyers embracing legal channels, although new consumers have also contributed to the increase in per capita sales,” BDSA wrote.