(COLORADO SPRINGS) — New Year’s Day marked the 10th anniversary of Colorado’s legal marijuana market. Since 2014, about $15.28 billion in regulated marijuana sales have taken place in licensed Colorado marijuana stores, and the state has collected approximately $2.6 billion in revenue from marijuana taxes and fees.
“By any objective measure, legalization in Colorado has been successful,” said Mason Tvert, partner at Denver-based cannabis policy firm VS Strategies. “Ultimately, our goal was to allow adults to use marijuana responsibly and purchase it legally and safely in licensed businesses and that’s exactly what’s taking place.”
Tvert was an official proponent of Amendment 64 and co-directed the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.
“Colorado’s launch of a regulated adult-use cannabis market was a major inflection point in our nation’s relationship with marijuana,” explained Tvert. “It set a compelling example not only for other states but also for countries around the globe. Colorado continues to be a leader on cannabis policy, and it has been at the forefront of many critical cannabis-related issues.”
The state was the first jurisdiction in the world to regulate and sell cannabis for adult use, and 10 years later, the industry appears to be experiencing some growing pains.
From January 2014 through August 2023, total sales of marijuana, including medical and recreational cannabis, surpassed $15 billion, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. In 2023, sales were $1.3 billion as of the end of October, trailing 2022’s $1.77 billion in sales and 2021’s $2.2 billion in sales. Meanwhile, prices are decreasing and marijuana business licenses are also on the decline. CU Boulder Today reported the average price per gram of recreational marijuana flower was $4.83 in 2021, $3.84 in 2022, and $3.43 in 2023. The state issued 685 licenses for the year as of June 2023, a 10.7% decrease from a year earlier.
The past two years have industry insiders wondering how to get business booming again, while those against the industry want more regulations.
“We saw the marijuana sales and consumption skyrocket during COVID-19, why was that, well we saw addiction levels to all substances skyrocket during COVID-19 because of isolation, because of mental health challenges and a lot of people were trying to self-medicate their mental health challenges of isolation with substances like alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs,” explained Luke Niforatos, Executive Vice President of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “It’s a really sad and awful thing that we saw the sales of marijuana go up during that time because that means we saw addiction go up to marijuana.”
Smart Approaches to Marijuana has the primary focus of educating the public about what they call the harms of marijuana legalization. Niforatos has more than a decade of working on drug, addiction, and health care issues. He has testified in state capitols across America.
“The vast majority of the money that’s being spent out there is to push irresponsible messages about marijuana that, it’s harmless, that it’s medicine, that it helps you and no one is hearing the fact that science tells us that today’s marijuana is up to 40 times more potent than it’s ever been in the history of the plant,” said Niforatos.
Tvert believes the state has established rules for everything from cultivation and manufacturing to product labeling and marketing, and stores have demonstrated a strong commitment to preventing youth access.
“We now have 10 solid years of evidence that regulating cannabis works,” explained Tvert. “Cannabis at every level of potency has been available forever and will continue to be available forever. The question is whether we force people to get at it illegally from who knows where and who knows what they’re getting. Or do we let them buy it legally in stores where they’re getting products that are tested and labeled and controlled?”
Researchers at Smart Approaches to Marijuana are led by a science advisory board of scientists from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, who want to see science lead the discussion when it comes to marijuana policy.
“Now what we’re seeing is the marijuana industry’s revenue starting to decline, I think that decline is readjusting to what probably the normal mean of sales was before the pandemic, which boosted their sales,” explained Niforatos. “I think we’re going to probably see a return to the average sales before COVID-19. What we’re seeing in Colorado is the vast majority of the increases in our use of marijuana as a state is happening in the young adult age range of 20 to 26, and 20 to 28 age range, which is a more than 60% increase in the state of Colorado. Your brain is still developing through that age range and what we know from marijuana scientifically is that it stunts your brain’s growth when you use it during your development stages of life.”
As Colorado looks to the next decade, Tvert believes the next step that needs to be taken in the state is improving regulatory efficiency and prioritizing public safety.
As of September 2023, there were more than 2,500 active cannabis business licenses in Colorado, including 912 active retail establishment licenses. There are more than 36,000 active occupational licenses that have been issued to individuals working in the cannabis industry.
While marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, proponents of the measure say there are still some roadblocks when it comes to tax issues and banking.
“I’d say perhaps the best part of this law is that it has the flexibility for legislators and regulators to go back and make tweaks as needed based on whether it’s public opinion or new developments in science and technology,” Tvert explained. “We just continue to improve upon that policy and also learn from other states.”
There are now 24 states with legal recreational cannabis. Those against the industry want to see sales continue to decrease and are encouraging other cities to follow Colorado Springs.
“What we would recommend for state lawmakers and city-level lawmakers to do is, deal with the high-potency marijuana,” Niforatos explained. “We need to do anything we can to lower the potency of these products, right now Colorado has no cap on the potency of marijuana. We also would like to see at the local level, more cities do exactly what Colorado Springs did, which is ban marijuana shops. Right now Colorado Springs has medical marijuana shops, but they have banned recreational shops, we think that’s the right policy.”
“At this point, Colorado Springs is the only largely populated locality that is not allowing some form of adult-use marijuana business,” Tvert explained. “It’s unfortunate because marijuana is going to be there. It’s going to be used whether it’s being sold locally or in a neighboring city or up in Denver and the question is, number one, does Colorado Springs want that tax revenue? Number two, does it want the jobs that are being created by these businesses, number three, why would they want citizens and adults to have to travel elsewhere to purchase these products at worst, turn to the illegal market to purchase these products when they could just be buying them legally at stores, much like liquor stores?”
COVID-19 brought about a boom for the cannabis industry and as sales begin to even out following the pandemic, groups like Smart Approaches to Marijuana are prioritizing safety as more proposals surrounding marijuana move forward.