Colorado’s cannabis industry is still killing it, despite new states jumping into the recreational weed game.
On Wednesday, Westword reported that the Colorado Department of Revenue posted the Centennial State’s latest marijuana sales figures. In January, Colorado’s weed companies sold nearly $140 million worth of licensed product, generating roughly 3.5 times more revenue than Illinois — the 11th state to legalize — did in the same month. (To be fair, Illinois set a record for selling more weed in its very first month of legal sales than every other state that came before it, including Colorado.)
The latest state data confirms a six-year-long trend of ever-increasing pot sales. Colorado’s January 2020 sales performed 12 percent higher than January sales in 2019, which brought in about $125 million.
Image via Colorado Department of Revenue and Westword
And even with Colorado’s recreational weed industry soaring, medical marijuana sales show no signs of slowing down, either. The state sold $28 million of medical cannabis in January 2020, which was 9 percent more than what was sold in January 2019.
While the Department of Revenue still hasn’t released February’s figures, the month may break records, as well. Typically, February is the shortest month, so it usually has some of the lowest sales figures, but with 2020 being a leap year with five Saturdays instead of the usual four, we may be seeing another sales milestone in the coming weeks.
In 2019, Colorado sold a whopping $1.7 billion in legal weed. In comparison, California, the world’s largest marijuana market, sold a cool $3 billion. But Colorado selling half of what California did, despite California having a population seven times larger than Colorado’s, is still pretty impressive.
