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New Mexico’s legal cannabis retailers moved nearly $38 million worth of product last month, a slight dip from April’s high.
According to a new report by the Cannabis Control Division of the state Regulation and Licensing Department, adult-use and medical dispensaries sold $37.7 million worth of legal weed this June. This marks the second month in a row that sales have dipped slightly. In April, the month that adult-use sales began, retailers made $39.1 million, but that total shrunk to $38.5 million in May and contracted a little bit further last month.
But while the monthly sales total has been dipping, the overall market share of adult-use weed has been growing. The Land of Enchantment sold $21.2 million worth of adult-use bud in June, slightly higher than the $21.1 million sold in May, but lower than April’s $22.1 million record. The total market share of adult-use versus medical sales actually hit a peak of 56.2% last month, though, slightly topping April’s 56.1% market share.
Adult-use sales are now outpacing medical sales in most major cities, with one notable exception. Rio Rancho’s medical cannabis dispensaries sold $924,781 worth of medicine last month, beating out the city’s $716,053 in adult-use sales. Albuquerque has maintained its crown as the most weed-friendly city in the state, with over $7 million in adult-use sales and another $6.6 million in medical sales. Other large cities like Las Cruces and Santa Fe only managed to sell around $1.7 million worth of recreational pot each in that same time frame.
Smaller cities and towns along the Texas border are also making a killing. Sunland Park and Hobbs, two moderately-sized border towns, each made over $1.2 million in adult-use sales in June. Local industry stakeholders have estimated that Texans and other out-of-state shoppers will buy up at least 40% of the legal weed that New Mexico produces. US Border Police have threatened to arrest people who cross state lines with weed, but this deterrent clearly isn’t stopping Texans from scoring some legal bud from their friendly neighbors.
Adult-use stores in central cities are also thriving, even in smaller communities that have been less willing to embrace the wave of cannabis reform. “I was kind of expecting to be run out of town, you know, tarred and feathered or something like that,” said Jonathan LeDuc, who runs an adult-use dispensary in Los Alamos, to KRQE News 13. “There’s a couple of people that aren’t pleased with what we’re doing. But overall, I am amazed at how well we’ve been received from the county and from the town in general… It’s going really, really well.”
And since things are going so well, state and local tax departments have extra cash to fill their coffers. Last month, the state Taxation and Revenue Department received 124 cannabis excise tax returns, bringing in $2.5 million in tax income on May’s adult-use sales, up from $2.4 million in April. The state gives adult-use retailers one month to pay their excise tax bills for the previous month, so June’s total tax income haul won’t be reported until August.
