Marylanders have spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying cannabis since the drug was legalized for adult use this summer.
Every month since July, there’s been at least $50 million of sales of adult-use cannabis, on top of more than $30 million per month sold for medical patients – a robust market for the fledgling industry.
“I’m very encouraged by what I’m seeing,” said Darrell Carrington, a lobbyist and executive director of the Maryland Cannabis Industry Association.
So far, sales are matching what the state’s top cannabis regulator expected. Will Tilburg, acting director of the Maryland Cannabis Administration, said Maryland’s growth has followed a similar track as states with comparable size and type of market. “The challenging thing is that every state has done this differently,” Tilburg said.
The best comparison for Maryland is Massachusetts, he said. It’s geographically small with several bordering states, has a slightly larger population, and also had a medical market before expanding to adult sales of cannabis.
So far, Maryland is on track to sell $1.1 billion worth of medical and recreational cannabis combined in the first 12 months, slightly more than double the $500 million in medical cannabis that was sold last year, Tilburg said.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Pamela Wood over at The Baltimore Banner
