Regulated gross sales of hashish hit file ranges in New Mexico throughout October, with licensed gross sales of marijuana totaling almost $40 million for the month, in response to knowledge launched final week by the state’s Hashish Management Division (CCD). October was the fourth straight month of record-breaking weed gross sales in New Mexico, the place dispensaries launched regulated gross sales of adult-use hashish in April.
Month-to-month gross sales of hashish in October totaled $39.8 million, with leisure marijuana gross sales topping $25 million in New Mexico for the primary time, according to CCD data up to date on Thursday. Medical marijuana gross sales, nonetheless, noticed a decline, dropping to $14.7 million final month, a brand new low since adult-use hashish gross sales started earlier this yr. Since April, dispensaries have bought a complete of $161 million in leisure marijuana.
New Mexico Regulators Launch New On-line Knowledge Portal
The up to date hashish gross sales figures had been supplied by way of the state’s new Hashish Reporting On-line Portal, which started working on Thursday afternoon. Along with offering knowledge on hashish gross sales, the portal additionally provides different info on New Mexico’s hashish trade, such because the variety of licensed dispensaries working within the state.
“A couple of months in the past, CCD noticed a possibility to offer larger details about the New Mexico hashish trade by a knowledge portal much like different states,” said Bernice Geiger, a spokeswoman with the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Division. “We had been capable of seize knowledge from our seed-to-sale software program to additional disseminate knowledge in intuitive, customizable graphical type.”
Gross sales of adult-use hashish had been notably sturdy in cities near New Mexico’s border with Texas, the place leisure marijuana continues to be unlawful. In Sunland Park, gross sales of leisure marijuana topped $1.5 million in October, a brand new file for the city of solely 20,000 residents. Hobbs, which sits alongside the border with west Texas, additionally noticed a record-breaking month with $1.47 million in adult-use hashish gross sales. Dispensaries in Clovis, additionally on the west Texas border, rang up $731,00 in leisure marijuana gross sales final month.
Reilly White, an affiliate professor with the College of New Mexico’s Anderson Faculty of Administration, instructed the Albuquerque Journal that hashish gross sales are prone to stay sturdy in New Mexico’s southern and japanese border cities so long as leisure marijuana stays in opposition to the regulation in neighboring Texas.
“We’re seemingly going to see continued development in month-to-month hashish gross sales because the market turns into extra mature,” White stated, noting that border cities in Colorado have seen a dip in gross sales since leisure marijuana gross sales started in New Mexico earlier this yr.
Grownup-use hashish gross sales had been additionally helped, White stated, by the inflow of vacationers visiting New Mexico for the fiftieth Albuquerque Worldwide Balloon Fiesta, which introduced hundreds of tourists to the state in the course of the first 9 days of October. Albuquerque gross sales of leisure marijuana got here to $8.1 million in October, a brand new file for town.
“The Balloon Fiesta did lead to a optimistic enhance in gross sales for native hashish companies, as larger tourism visitors boosted leisure use,” he stated. “The large take a look at forward for the trade will seemingly be macroeconomic circumstances in 2023 – if we have now a recession, how will customers in the reduction of on leisure hashish?”
Medical Marijuana Gross sales Decline
Regardless of the sturdy gross sales of adult-use hashish, gross sales of medical marijuana in New Mexico continued to say no. Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of medical hashish supplier Extremely Well being, stated that the drop in medical marijuana gross sales can seemingly be attributed to sufferers who are actually acquiring hashish from leisure marijuana dispensaries.
“Medical gross sales are reclassified into adult-use gross sales,” Rodriguez stated. “They’re simply being transferred from one bucket to the opposite.”
Ben Lewinger, the chief director of the New Mexico Hashish Chamber of Commerce, stated that different states have additionally seen a decline in medical marijuana gross sales following the legalization of adult-use hashish. Based on knowledge from the New Mexico Division of Well being, the variety of medical marijuana sufferers within the state has dropped by 473 sufferers within the span of a yr, with the full variety of sufferers declining to 123,990 in September.
“We knew that the variety of enrolled medical sufferers was going to contract, because it has in each different medical state that has shifted to grownup use,” Lewinger stated. “What’s necessary is that we proceed to put money into the medical program by persevering with so as to add extra qualifying circumstances in order that extra folks can obtain hashish remedy, with out paying taxes on their drugs.”
In August, after the state started its four-month run of record-breaking hashish gross sales, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham commented on the financial alternatives introduced by regulated adult-use hashish.
“These numbers present that the spectacular gross sales generated within the first month of legalized leisure hashish gross sales had been no fluke – and that is solely the start,” Grisham said in an announcement from the governor’s workplace. “We’ve established a brand new trade that’s already producing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in native and state income and can proceed to generate hundreds of thousands extra in financial exercise throughout the state, creating hundreds of jobs for New Mexicans in communities each small and enormous.”