Grownup-use hashish gross sales soared final yr in Maine, almost doubling the whole for 2021.
The local news outlet Masthead Maine, citing knowledge that was launched by the Maine Workplace of Hashish Coverage, experiences that the “state’s licensed adult-use retailers reported almost 2.5 million sale transactions, totaling $158.9 million [in 2022],” which was up from the $82 million of gross sales generated the yr prior.
“(The expansion) displays the numerous financial impression that authorized hashish continues to have within the communities which have opted into the system,” stated John Hudak, the director of the state’s Workplace of Hashish Coverage, as quoted by Masthead Maine. “The system is creating jobs, serving to revitalize communities, and having a constructive financial impression on companies that assist the trade operate.”
Maine voters accredited a proposal legalizing leisure hashish use for adults in 2016, however the regulation took years to lastly materialize.
That’s as a result of former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, repeatedly stood in the way in which of the regulation’s implementation.
However voters there elected a brand new governor in 2018, the Democrat Janet Mills, who instantly went to work in upholding the need of the folks and getting the brand new marijuana regulation up and working.
In the summertime of 2019, Mills signed a invoice that made modifications to and enacted the brand new hashish regulation.
“Over the course of the final a number of months, my Administration has labored shortly to implement the regulation concerning Maine’s adult-use leisure marijuana market as Maine voters requested the state to do two and a half years in the past,” Mills said at the time. “The rule improvement demonstrates what may be achieved when state authorities works with lawmakers, trade stakeholders, and the general public to perform a shared objective. With this regulation, we’re one step nearer to honoring the need of Maine voters.”
The governor’s workplace stated on the time that the laws signed by Mills made “a number of modifications to the [marijuana law] together with an modification to the Maine Meals Regulation to now not take into account edibles produced with leisure marijuana as adulterated, permitting the entry of sure distributors into the restricted entry areas of licensees, and authorizing the division to impose an administrative maintain on a licensee,” whereas moreover authorizing each the Workplace of Marijuana Coverage and the state Division of Administrative and Monetary Providers “to finish last adoption of their grownup use rulemaking.”
“OMP consulted with seven totally different state companies consisting of the Division of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry; Division of Well being and Human Providers; Division of Labor; Division of Public Security; Division of Environmental Safety; Division of Skilled and Monetary Regulation; and DAFS’ Maine Income Providers when finishing their rulemaking work,” Mills’s office said at the time. “The workplace additionally coordinated intently with the Workplace of the Legal professional Normal, Division of the Secretary of State and the Legislature’s Workplace of Coverage and Authorized Evaluation.”
Authorized adult-use hashish gross sales formally kicked off in Maine in October of 2020, almost 4 years after voters accredited the legalization poll measure.
The months and years which have adopted have seen the fledgling marijuana trade develop and prosper. In Might 2021, the state reported greater than $5 million in leisure pot gross sales, which on the time made it the very best grossing month.
That could be a modest determine in comparison with the newer month-to-month gross sales totals. Masthead Maine experiences that the state “set a brand new document every month by means of August 2022, which introduced in over $17 million.”
Final month introduced in $15.2 million in leisure marijuana gross sales, in accordance with the outlet, and the 2022 gross sales “additionally earned the state roughly $16 million in tax income.”