skip to Main Content
U.S. Cannabis Sales Hit Record $17.5 Billion As Americans Consume More Marijuana Than Ever Before

The coronavirus was good for some industries and ruinous for others. For cannabis, 2020 was a breakout year. Legal sales across the U.S.—15 states allow adult use, 35 allow for medical sales—hit a record of $17.5 billion, a 46% increase from 2019, according to a new report.

Most of the sales growth came from adult-use markets, especially mature markets like Colorado, which grew sales by 26% to reach $2.2 billion, and Oregon, which saw sales hit $1.1 billion, a 29% increase over 2019, according to the report published by BDSA, a cannabis sales data platform.

Emerging markets like Illinois, which expanded its medical cannabis market to include adult-use sales last year, saw the largest dollar gain in 2020, rising by $784 million. (Illinois’ cannabis market is now doing over $1 billion in sales.) California, the country’s largest cannabis economy at $3.5 billion, increased sales by $586 million, while Florida saw a $473 million increase.

“We expected more potential impact from an economic downturn, but the industry has proven to be resilient,” says Kelly Nielsen, who runs BDSA’s insights and analytics department. “It’s potentially recession-proof.”

Nielsen says three things contributed to the industry’s growth last year: the Covid-19 pandemic (many states deemed dispensaries “essential businesses” during lockdown); more customers entered mature markets like California, Colorado and Oregon; and states like Illinois and Arizona have created new adult-use markets. [Read more at Forbes]

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

Meta Growth Founder & Pals Purchase Pornhub Parent

A Canadian private equity firm founded last year for this purpose has bought MindGeek, the beleaguered parent of Pornhub and many other well-known adult entertainment assets. Ottawa-based Ethical Capital Partners…

Gov. Hochul calls for bigger fines against unlicensed weed shops

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing steep fines for stores selling weed without a license. The move comes as pressure builds to crack down on unlicensed cannabis shops –…

Raphael Mechoulam, ‘Father of Cannabis Research,’ Dies at 92

Raphael Mechoulam, a pioneering Israeli chemist who is credited with opening the field of cannabis science after identifying the structure and function of the key compounds of cannabis, died on…

Maryland CBD, Delta-8 sellers say cannabis bill will kill their industry

Sellers of hemp-derived products such as Delta-8 and CBD say a few lines in a recreational cannabis bill making its way through the Maryland legislature will put them out of…

More Categories

Back To Top
×Close search
Search