According to state data, Rhode Island’s licensed cannabis retailers sold more adult use cannabis in September than ever before. The overall sales fell short of the $9.67 million record set in August, due to a decline in medical cannabis purchases.
According to the latest figures from the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation, September sales of recreational marijuana products totaled 7,116,727.00 dollars. This is the highest amount since adult sales began in December 2022. The medical marijuana sales for the month of December were $2,516,624.54, which is a new low since adult-use cannabis sales began.
Rhode Island reported $9,633,351.50 in total marijuana sales during the month. This is just shy of the $9.672,793.26 that the state reported in August, which was the fourth consecutive month with record marijuana sales by licensed retailers.
The state’s monthly retail sales totals do not match the combined medical and recreational sales. In August, the difference was $2,000.12 in September. The truth is that none of the sales figures for the month equals the total of their medical and adult parts. This can range from $70,000 over the expected amount to $124,000 under.
When asked about the discrepancies on the state’s sales tracker an official from the Office of Cannabis Regulation informed Marijuana Moment the auditor would answer these questions is out of town until the beginning of next week.
Sales of cannabis concentrates, pre-rolls, and topicals were all at record levels in September. The sales of edibles, prepackaged flowers, tinctures and topicals, as well as vape carts were all lower than August.
The number of registered medical marijuana patients has also fallen to 10,817, down almost a third compared to the 15,062 patients who were active in December 2022 when sales for adult use began.
Rhode Island’s Governor and Leaders of the House and Senate announced in August their appointment to the state Cannabis Advisory Board. The 19-member panel issues recommendations in conjunction with the Cannabis Control Commission
On a tour of the state in that month, regulators heard from activists who urged for equity and other adjustments to industry rules.
Some workers in the marijuana sector have been trying to unionize.
This year, sales in many state markets that are relatively new have reached record highs.
Illinois officials recently touted the “unprecedented” growth of the marijuana industry in fiscal year 2023. Regulated stores sold more than $1.5 Billion in marijuana products. In September, the state stores sold more cannabis products individually than any previous month.
Connecticut has surpassed ‘s previous record of $25 million sales for September.
In Maryland, licensed retailers sold a -record amount of cannabis products for adult use in September despite a decline in medical marijuana sales.
In New Mexico, sales for the month of September barely missed the sales record set by August. The state also crossed the $500 million mark in adult-use sales.
In Rhode Island, also had a record month, selling the most cannabis for a fourth consecutive month. The state’s monthly sales totaled $9.7.
State officials in Montana reported that purchases of adult use cannabis also reached a new record in August ($23.7million), despite the fact that medical marijuana sales (at $5 million) were at a low since the opening of recreational markets in early 2017.
According to data released by the Office of Cannabis Policy in Maine, marijuana purchases reached a new high of nearly $22,000,000 during August.
Massachusetts officials announced in early August that since the launch of the adult-use market in Massachusetts five years ago, retailers had sold over $5 billion worth of marijuana. The sales reached $139.3 in August, and the total year-to date is $1.05 billion by the end of the first eight months.
Michigan marijuana sales also reached another record in July with nearly $277 millions worth of cannabis being sold.
Since the adult-use marijuana market was opened in Missouri in February, the state has seen an average of $4 million worth per day in sales. The state also saw a record amount of $121.2 million spent on cannabis in June.
Colorado’s mature marijuana market has seen sales of retail and medical marijuana decline in recent years. This is despite the fact that regulators announced last week that the state had passed the benchmark of over $15 billion in legal cannabis sales ever since the adult market was launched. The annual sales peaked at $2.2 billion in 2021. Since then, they have declined and mostly leveled off in the last two years.
The U.S. Census Bureau released a map earlier this month that showed the percentage of total state revenue that comes from marijuana-related activities. Cannabis has contributed $1 of every $20 tax revenue received by some states. Oregon is one example. In Rhode Island however, the most recent data available is from 2022. At that time, cannabis revenue accounted for just 0.13 percent.
The bureau released a report late last month showing that states with legal cannabis had collected over $5.7 billion in marijuana taxes during an 18-month period. It plans to continue updating this figure quarterly. Recently, the agency updated its survey of businesses in order to better capture marijuana related economic activity.
The new tracking and reporting initiatives, which come almost a decade after state-legalized sales of cannabis for adult use in the United States, indicate that the federal government is increasingly willing to acknowledge the billions dollars of revenue flowing into the state coffers each year as a result of marijuana legalization at the state level, even though the substance remains illegal federally.
A new interactive federal map shows how states rely on marijuana tax revenue to fund public services
Photo by Mike Latimer.
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