Recreational use accounts for 2/3 of Colorado cannabis

Medical marijuana may have been the first legal way to get cannabis in Colorado, but more and more marijuana products in the state are going to recreational customers.

According to new statistics released by the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, 66% of all the marijuana sold in 2018 went to the adult-use market. That works out to 288,292 pounds of cannabis out of the 436,155 pounds that were harvested.

That’s following a trend in the state, which has seen adult-use eclipse medical marijuana use in the past few years. In 2016, 52% of all cannabis flower went to the recreational market; in 2017, that number went up to nearly 58%.

But despite the increased demand by recreational-use customers, the amount of marijuana flower being harvested in the state has started to taper off. The total harvest has gone from 335,640 pounds in 2016 to 411,143 pounds in 2017, and 436,155 pounds in 2018.

One thing that’s clear from the annual statistics released by the MED: edibles are heavily favored by recreational-use customers. In 2018, 86% of all edibles were sold in adult-use markets; in 2017, 83% of all edibles were purchased by recreational customers.

When it comes to cannabis concentrates, recreational use dominates the market by sales, but medical marijuana patients purchase more concentrate per sale. About 6.8 million units of the 8.1 million units sold, or about 84%, went to recreational customers — but that accounts for 19,315 of the 33,967 pounds of concentrates sold, or about 56%.

Regardless of how cannabis is being sold, the numbers continue to go up and bring in record revenues for the state.