Pot sales in Arizona hit $1.2 billion and counting in 2023

After nearly three years, Arizona’s recreational and medical marijuana markets seem to have found an equilibrium, with adult-use cannabis consistently making up at least twice as many sales as the more heavily regulated medical industry.

October marked the third month in a row that recreational sales hovered around the $85 million mark, while medical marijuana sales dipped to $25.3 million.

Throughout 2023, medical sales have remained about one-third of the amount of adult-use recreational, which has led to the lowest medical use sales figure ever since competition with the recreational program began in January 2021.

The last time medical sales were above $30 million was in May 2023, and the medical market has not surpassed $40 million since June 2022. Medical sales have declined consistently since a peak of $73.4 million in April 2021.

The program continues to bleed participants as two-year medical cards expire and qualified users opt out of the $150 biannual certification fee and other costs associated with maintaining medical qualification.

Recreational sales have fluctuated between $80 million and $93.5 million since July 2022, with the exception of a record $100.2 million in March 2023.

Since the first time the recreational market passed the $80 million threshold in March 2022, it has only failed to reach that mark twice — once in May 2022, when it registered $79.3 million, and in June 2022, when sales were $77.2 million.

Through October 2023, medical cannabis sales totaled more than $294 million and Arizonans purchased more than $890 million in recreational marijuana, for a total year-to-date of nearly $1.2 billion. Since January 2021, when recreational sales began, the cannabis industry has generated more than $4 billion in revenues, with about $2.5 billion coming from recreational sales.

The state collected $2 million in taxes from medical sales in October so far, and $13.6 million from recreational sales.

The state collects a 16% excise tax on recreational sales in addition to the standard sales tax; medical patients pay roughly 6% in state sales tax. Local jurisdictions charge an additional 2% or so for all marijuana sales.

Through October 2023, the excise tax on adult-use marijuana sales has yielded about $142.5 million. In 2021, recreational cannabis generated $32.9 million for 11 months of sales, and in 2022 that number jumped to $132.8 million.

One-third of those taxes are dedicated to community college and provisional community college districts; 31% to public safety, including police, fire departments, fire districts and first responders; 25% to the Arizona Highway User Revenue Fund; and 10% to the justice reinvestment fund, which is dedicated to providing public health services, counseling, job training and other social services for communities that have been adversely affected and disproportionately impacted by marijuana arrests and criminalization.

The Arizona Department of Health Services reports on medical cannabis program participation monthly and is generally two to three months ahead of ADOR.

As of November, there were 118,541 qualifying patient cardholders, down from 121,047 in October. At the height of the medical market, there were 299,054 qualifying in January 2021 before the advent of recreational sales.

In November, Arizona medical cannabis consumers purchased 4,468 pounds of marijuana in various forms, down from 4,475 reported in October. The year to date total through November, was 51,543 pounds.

This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.