New Mexico’s legal marijuana retailers sold more than $47 million of combined adult-use and medical marijuana products in September, according to new data from the New Mexico Regulation & Licensing Department (RLD). While that marks a slight decline from the state’s $48 million monthly sales record set in August, the state has now reached the benchmark of half a billion dollars of recreational marijuana products being purchased since sales launched in April of last year.
Since then, sales of adult-use marijuana have been generally increasing, while medical cannabis sales have been trending downward.
State officials updated sales data on Monday following an inquiry from Marijuana Moment about apparent discrepancies in numbers that were posted on the agency’s website. A spokesperson for RLD said in an email that the state’s seed-to-sale tracking program “reported a logic error in past sales data reports so we’ve reuploaded all information from April 2022-September 2023.”
All told, sales of adult-use cannabis products in New Mexico have now exceeded half a billion dollars ($501,863,156.00) since the launch of the legal market, according to the updated data. Including medical cannabis sales since April 2022, the overall total is $772.2 million.
The average transaction in both adult-use and medical markets has been gently falling since adult-use stores opened, from highs of $50.86 for adult buyers and $52.60 for medical patients at that time to record lows this month of $41.35 and $49.47, respectively.
Workers in New Mexico’s marijuana industry are also enjoying higher pay on average than they were earning at their previous jobs, according to a state labor report released in June.
In May, the state regulators added insomnia to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) in April approved a bill in April to follow through on a key goal of the state’s marijuana legalization law by facilitating automatic expungements for prior cannabis convictions. She also vetoed legislation that same month that would have revised sentencing laws and prevented the incarceration of people over simple drug possession.
New Mexico was one of multiple states that’s seen record-breaking surges in marijuana sales this summer.
In August, for example, Rhode Island sold a record high amount of cannabis for the fourth consecutive month, notching $9.7 in monthly receipts.
Purchases of adult-use cannabis in August also broke a record ($23.7 million) in Montana, state officials reported, although medical marijuana sales were at their lowest ($5.0 million) since recreational markets opened early last year.
Connecticut also broke another marijuana sales record in August, with $25 million worth of medical and adult-use cannabis purchases, state data show.
In Maine, too, marijuana sales reached a record high in August, with nearly $22 million worth of purchases, according to recent data from the state Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP).
In Maryland, officials recently announced that the the state broke anther marijuana sales record in August, with nearly $92 million worth of cannabis products sold during the state’s second month of legal adult-use sales.
Early last month, Massachusetts officials reported that retailers have now sold more than $5 billion in adult-use marijuana since the state’s recreational market launched five years ago. Sales reached $139.3 million in August alone, with the year-to-date total at $1.05 billion within the first eight months of 2023.
Illinois retailers sold $140 million worth of recreational marijuana products in July—the strongest sales of the year and second highest monthly total for the state since the adult-use market launched in 2020.
Michigan marijuana sales also reached another record high in July, with nearly $277 million worth of cannabis sold.
In Missouri, meanwhile, retailers have been selling about $4 million worth of marijuana per day on average since the state’s adult-use market opened up in February—and the state saw a record $121.2 million in cannabis purchases in June. (Full Story)