{"id":7208,"date":"2017-02-10T03:29:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T03:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2454315&amp;preview_id=2454315"},"modified":"2017-02-10T03:29:27","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T03:29:27","slug":"colorado-sold-1-3-billion-worth-of-marijuana-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-sold-1-3-billion-worth-of-marijuana-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado sold $1.3 billion worth of marijuana in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-sold-1-3-billion-worth-of-marijuana-in-2016\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\" id=\"sticky-outer\">\n<div class=\"large-11 small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Feb 9, 2017, 5:25 pm \u2022 Updated: Feb 10, 2017, 10:19 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/09\/colorado-marijuana-sales-2016\/73415\/#disqus_thread\" class=\"commentsNameLink\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <span class=\"author\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/author\/awallace\/\" rel=\"author\">Alicia Wallace<\/a><\/span><em>, The Cannabist Staff<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a billion-dollar business \u2014 and then some.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, Colorado\u2019s dispensaries bagged $1.3 billion in recreational and medical cannabis sales, based on Colorado Department of Revenue tax data released Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>To put the state\u2019s third year of regulated recreational marijuana sales in perspective, Year One totaled $699.2 million (combined with medical sales) and Year Two jumped up to $996.2 million. The trend should continue in Year Four, but beyond that? It\u2019s a murkier proposition. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cColorado has had a really good run, being the first mover,\u201d said Miles Light, an economist with the Marijuana Policy Group, which provides economic and market consulting services to legal cannabis markets. \u201cNow, as other states legalize, some of these external benefits that are occurring are going to be eroded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Light noted that in 2017, none of the eight states that voted to legalize the medical or recreational use of marijuana will have implemented their regulations. <\/p>\n<p>2016 was the year in which the $100-million-month became a baseline and heralded a record-breaking summer: The combined sales for July, August and September were $376.6 million. <\/p>\n<p>Monthly sales topped $100 million in eight of the 12 months. In December, which is typically a strong month for cannabis transactions, pot shops\u2019 sales were a little more than $114.7 million, a 13 percent increase from the $101.3 million recorded in December 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado\u2019s third year of legal recreational marijuana sales also saw some external pressures, notably in the form of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/01\/18\/marijuana-price-drops-state-revenue\/71657\/\">price drops on wholesale cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a difficult year,\u201d said Sally Vander Veer, president of Medicine Man, an operator of one of Denver\u2019s larger medical and retail dispensaries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re still seeing a steady increase in the number of customers and patients, but (sales) numbers are pretty flat,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p>The Colorado Department of Revenue\u2019s tax data don\u2019t provide information about transactions, so it\u2019s difficult to know the impact of price declines on the overall sales totals. The data do show that recreational marijuana accounted for an $875 million share of that haul while medical sales accounted for roughly $438 million. <\/p>\n<p>They also show that Colorado brought in about $199 million in tax and fees revenue for the calendar year. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colorado.gov\/pacific\/sites\/default\/files\/16-04%20Distribution%20of%20Marijuana%20Tax%20Revenue%20Updated_2.pdf\">Marijuana tax revenue is put toward areas<\/a> such as school construction projects, public health and law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the visitor demand that drives a lot of this incremental growth in Colorado\u2019s marijuana industry, Light said. That includes the tourist who buys an eighth for a ski trip here and that\u2019s also the visitors who come into the state to purchase product to illegally supply to other markets, he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2017\/01\/25\/colorado-2016-tourism-legal-weed-waning\/\">The Denver Post reported in January<\/a> that research commissioned by the Colorado Tourism Office found interest in legal weed waning among visitors. \u201c2016 represented a return to the more usual Colorado traveler,\u201d tourism director Cathy Ritter said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<div id=\"title\">Sales stats for Colorado weed<\/div>\n<div id=\"subtitle\">A month-by-month look comparing sales of recreational and medical marijuana<\/div>\n<div id=\"canvas-container\">\n<div id=\"legend-container\">\n<div id=\"recreational\">2016 Recreational total (12 months)<br \/>$875,277,360<\/div>\n<div id=\"medical\">2016 Medical total (12 months)<br \/>$437,879,186<\/div>\n<div id=\"revenue-total\">2016: $1,313,156,545<\/div>\n<div id=\"recreational\">2015 Recreational total (12 months)<br \/>$587,834,219<\/div>\n<div id=\"medical\">2015 Medical total (12 months)<br \/>$408,350,569<\/div>\n<div id=\"revenue-total\">2015: $996,184,788<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p \/>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"entry-meta-author\">\n<div class=\"authorimage\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/author\/awallace\/\" rel=\"author\"><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/colorado-sold-1-3-billion-worth-of-marijuana-in-2016.jpg\" class=\"authormug\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"author-desc\">Alicia Wallace joined The Cannabist in July 2016, covering national marijuana policy and business. She contributes to the Denver Post&#8217;s beer industry coverage. In her 13 years as a business news reporter, her coverage has spanned the economy, Sports&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, Colorado&#8217;s dispensaries bagged $1.3 billion in recreational and medical cannabis sales. To compare, Year One of the recreational era totaled $699.2 million and Year Two jumped up to $996.2 million. The trend should continue in Year Four, but beyond that? It&#8217;s a murkier proposition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5062,6811,6813,77,5577,6815,6858,6822,56,9,5019,1,3,2379,2035,61,1736],"tags":[5063,6816,6818,2655,5580,6820,6860,6824,2636,5022,4974,4603],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}