One of the most common things you hear about California and weed is that it’s the biggest market in the world, and has been for some time now. However, that’s finally changing as the US continues to reel from an ever-changing cannabis market.
Canada’s marijuana sales for the month of June were recently released, which topped out at $517.8 million Canadian dollars. That’s $374.5 million in US currency, which tops the $372.4 million that California took in in the same month.
So yes, California is losing its bragging rights, but the $372 million is still a colossal number that no other state is even close to. The runner up is Michigan, and they’re estimated to have made around $250 to $270 million in June. So while California may no longer be the largest market in the world, it’s still the largest in the US by a huge margin.
This may be a sign of a larger shift in the years ahead. As SFGate reports, Canada’s market is actively growing as it further diminishes the illicit market in the country and starts exporting to Germany and other countries. California, on the other hand, peaked in 2021 and still has a pretty robust illicit market in the state. California also can’t benefit from exports, even to other legal states, due to a continued federal ban in the US.
“California had every advantage imaginable. Yet poor policymaking has turned what should have been the world’s premier legal cannabis market into a cautionary tale,” Hirsh Jain, a cannabis consultant in California, told SFGate.
While it may not be as dire as Jain describes just yet, The plateauing in the years since covid should certainly act as a wake up call for the state, where the cost of doing business is simply too high to prosper.
Read the original article at SFGate.
