America loves Mary Jane - $5.4billion worth in 2015

It's been called the Green Rush, with new businesses and big investors getting into the legal Cannabis markets. In four states and the District of Columbia, Adult-use has been legalized along with twenty-three other states allowing Medical Marijuana use. Recently, two highly respected market analysis firms (the ArcView Group and New Frontier) released financial data confirming that the Green Rush is real.

"2015 was another watershed year for the legal cannabis market. National legal sales grew to $5.4 billion up from $4.6 billion in 2014, fueled by explosive growth in adult use market sales, which grew from $351 million in 2014 to $998 million, an increase of 184%. Demand is expected to remain strong in 2016 with legal markets projected to grow to $6.7 billion, a 24% increase over 2015.

2016 will be a watershed year for marijuana legalization. Seven states will be voting to allow adult use, including California, Nevada, and Arizona in the southwest, and Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont in the northeast. Importantly, Vermont is poised to be the first state to legalize cannabis through the Legislature. Four states – Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania – are best positioned to advance medical laws in 2016.

Currently, 86% of Americans live in a state that allows some degree of legal cannabis use, including CBD-only, medical and full adult use. The wide exposure of the majority of Americans to evolving cannabis laws has been instrumental in shaping the public’s increasing acceptance of cannabis. By 2020, legal market sales will grow to $21.8 billion, with adult use sales comprising nearly two-thirds of the total market."

While this report contains information for all of the legal markets, we wanted to include some of the interesting facts we reviewed about our home state of Washington.

• In Washington, the first year of legal sales generated $70 million in tax revenues from sales of $257 million, a significant windfall even after product shortages and pricing instability plagued the program during its early months.

• In Washington, the price increase created by the state’s initial tax rate of 25% charged for each sale at the producer, processor, and retail levels respectively was cited as a key reason for low consumer participation when the legal market first launched. This led lawmakers to change the tax to a flat rate of 37% charged on retail sales in the summer of 2015. Following this change the state’s market has experienced strong and steady growth.

• Washington saw strong growth in monthly sales in 2015, growing by 299% from $18.8 million in January to $75.3 million in December.

• New products have changed the landscape of cannabis product consumption. In Washington, edibles and extract sales are already numbering in the hundreds of thousands of units in a single month.

• Among the states where adult use is currently legal, Washington is projected to be the largest market by 2020 at $2.3 billion followed by Colorado at $2 billion. Collectively, the top 5 states will generate $5.5 billion in sales by 2020 and will account for 47% of the total adult use market

If you love numbers and charts and loads of data, we highly encourage you download the free "Executive Summary" made available by the ArcView Group. You can find that --> HERE

One statistic that always catches our eye, is the numbers for topical sales. Topicals do not get a person "high", they are great for a variety of conditions like arthritis and muscle pain. For many of the people that we talk to through Seniors MMJ Network, topicals is usually our first recommendation. However, they are barely a registrable blip on any chart comparing the sales of different Cannabis products. In Washington, they make up roughly 1% of overall sales. What can we take away from that statistic….? Just like the headline says, America loves Mary Jane.

#washingtonstatenews #legal