Marijuana could net so much money for California that sales may even surpass beer profits.

On Monday, January 1, retailers will be able to legally sell recreational marijuana and, in 2018 alone, dispensaries are expected to earn $3.7billion, according to BDS Analytics, a cannabis market data and analytics company.

By 2019, that number is expected to jump by more than one billion. If this is the case, marijuana could bring in more revenue than beer, which brought in $5billion this year, according to data from industry research group IBIS World.

More than six dozen marijuana retailers have been licensed to start selling recreational pot in California on New Year's Day.

So far, the Bureau of Cannabis Control has issued more than 300 licenses statewide for marijuana distributors, retailers and cultivators.

Marijuana could net so much money for California that sales may even surpass beer profits. On Monday, January 1, retailers will be able to legally sell recreational marijuana and, in 2018 alone, dispensaries are expected to earn $3.7billion (Pictured, a budtender displays cannabis at the Higher Path medical marijuana dispensary in California, Wednesday)

By 2019, that number is expected to jump by more than one billion. More than six dozen marijuana retailers have been licensed to start selling recreational pot in California on New Year's Day (Pictured, sample containers of marijuana are on display at MedMen, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, December 21)

Beer brought in $5billion of revenue for California this year, according to data from industry research group IBIS World (Pictured, left, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, brewed in California)

Making money from cannabis sales has never been an issue. California's existing marijuana black market is worth roughly $13.5billion, Newsweek reported.

'You're taking an industry that was completely underground and making it the most regulated product of all time,' Jessica Lilga, who runs a medical cannabis distribution service in Oakland, California, and aspires to begin selling recreational pot, told USA Today. 'It's just insane.'

Despite becoming legal on January 1 for any adult in the state - both resident and tourist - analysts say that most people will not be able to actually receive the drug on Monday.

'If people are looking to go out on January 1 and purchase adult-use cannabis, I think we would preach patience, because not everybody is going to be ready,' Alex Traverso, a spokesperson for California's Bureau of Cannabis Control, told Bloomberg.

Although lighting up in California will be legal this week, it still remains illegal under federal law.

The state paved the way for legal weed by passing the nation's first medical marijuana law, though other states were quicker to allow the drug's recreational use.

Despite becoming legal on January 1 for any adult in the state - both resident and tourist - analysts say that most people will not be able to actually receive the drug on Monday (Pictured, Dale Gieringer, of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, at his home in Berkeley, California, December 22)

In November 2016, California voters legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, making it legal to grow six plants and possess an ounce of pot, 20 years after legalizing it for medicinal purposes in 1996 (A budtender displays cannabis at the Higher Path medical marijuana in California on Wednesday)

In November 2016, California voters legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, making it legal to grow six plants and possess an ounce of pot. The state was given one year to set retail market regulations that are still being formalized and will be phased in over the next year.

In 1996, over objections of law enforcement, California voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes, which led to wider acceptance of the drug as medicine.

'The heavens didn't fall,' said Dale Gieringer, director of California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

'We didn't see increased youth drug abuse or increased accidents or crazy things happening as our opponents predicted.'

Currently, 28 other states have adopted similar laws. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana.

California is one of five states, plus Washington, DC, that followed suit. Retail sales are also scheduled to begin in Massachusetts in July.