Industry Colorado Hits $1 Billion in Sales, Oregon Also Crushing It Gage Peake December 12, 2016

Colorado cannabis shops reached an enormous milestone today that they barely missed last year, recording $1 billion in legal cannabis sales.

According to October data just released by Colorado’s Department of Revenue, the state’s adult-use and medical cannabis outlets have sold nearly $1.1 billion worth of products so far in 2016.

Hitting the billion-dollar mark in sales is an noteworthy accomplishment for the cannabis industry in Colorado.

Colorado barely missed hitting the $1 billion mark last year, as the state totaled $996,184,788 in sales during 2015. Christian Sederberg, a leading industry attorney in Colorado, told the Denver Post he believes the sales number will continue to grow, while the overall economic impact from the industry continues to skyrocket.

“We think we’ll see $1.3 billion in sales revenue this year,” said Sederberg, “and so the economic impact of this industry — if we’re using the same multiplier from the Marijuana Policy Group’s recent report, which is totally reasonable — it suddenly eclipses a $3 billion economic impact for 2016.”

Colorado dispensaries recorded $82.8 million in adult-use sales and more than $35 million in medicinal sales during October 2016. Those figures are slightly down from September, but October’s sales are up year over year by more than 46 percent.

Oregon Crushing Original Tax Payment Projections

Oregon also released promising news today, announcing that tax payments have nearly tripled the original projections by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

Payments have totaled $54.5 million as of November 30, higher than the original projection of $18.4 million in revenue for the first two years of adult-use cannabis taxation in Oregon, which began in July 2015.

With the booming industry, the Oregon Department of Revenue has also added a new web page to its website, dedicated to cannabis tax statistics.

These statistics can be found on the department’s website.

Oregon’s state taxes on recreational marijuana is set at a rate of 17 percent. Cannabis tax revenue will go to pay for police, addiction programs, and schools.

Gage Peake Gage Peake is a former staff writer for Leafly, where he specialized in data journalism, sports, and breaking news coverage. He's a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Journalism and Mass Communications. View Gage Peake's articles