Consumers spent $121 million on retail/medical cannabis in July. Since the program’s inception, every month has shown an increase in prior spending. Retail store licensees are now at 415 (heading to 535), but only about 260 are reporting sales. Licensed growers are now at 1100, there being no upper limit on their licenses.
After one month, the merge of recreational and medical marijuana programs seems to be going well, though there are those that will completely disagree with me on that because I have a different definition of success. That said, there were no police raids on illegal medical marijuana dispensaries, even Tacoma has held off so far. I hope this remains the situation because the imagery of cops using battering rams and military weapons to destroy a pot store isn’t good for anyone.
The lag in getting stores licensed then open for cash business seems to be due to local issues like building codes, land-use, and here where I am, septic drain field issues, local stuff like that.
The merger of the programs follow the same laws, are regulated by a single agency, run by the same board, products are supplied by the same growers and processors, and then sold by the same retailers. The merger makes no difference at the infrastructure level.
I’m still sticking to my guess that the Washington market is about 1.5 billion/year.