New Mexico cannabis sales top $300 million

It’s been a year since cash registers first started ringing up sales of adult-use recreational marijuana in New Mexico.

They haven’t stopped.

Commercial sales of recreational cannabis topped more than $300 million in their first year, generating more than $27 million in excise taxes, according to figures released Monday.

“In just one year, hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity has been generated in communities across the state, the number of businesses continues to increase, and thousands of New Mexicans are employed by this new industry,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who signed the bill to legalize recreational marijuana, said in a statement.

“I’m excited to see what the future holds as we continue to develop an innovative and safe adult-use cannabis industry,” she said.

The law legalizing recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older went into effect in June 2021, but sales didn’t begin until April 1, 2022.

Since then, the state has issued around 2,000 cannabis licenses, including 633 cannabis retailers, 351 producers, 415 micro producers and 507 manufacturers, according to the state Regulation and Licensing Department.

Monthly sales of recreational marijuana have remained consistent throughout the last year, but last month marked the highest at $32.3 million.

The state has recorded more than 6.7 million transactions of recreational marijuana totaling nearly $301 million in sales. Including medical marijuana, the state has recorded more than 10.3 million transactions totaling more than $488 million in combined sales in the last year.

As expected, the highest number of sales of recreational marijuana were in the state’s three largest cities: Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe.

Smaller communities, including Clovis, Farmington, and Ruidoso, each saw more than $7 million in adult-use sales. Sunland Park near the Texas border recorded $19.4 million in adult-use sales, according to a news release.

Emily Kaltenbach, senior director for criminal, legal and policing reform for the Drug Policy Alliance, said the sales revenue from recreational cannabis is “closely aligned” with what the organization had projected for the first year.

Kaltenbach said the legalization of recreational marijuana repairs the harms caused by prohibition.

“It’s really important that we are legalizing for the right reasons, and that has to be rooted in social justice,” she said. “The most important thing is that all those individuals who are purchasing now in a legal, regulated market are not going to be punished and criminalized for possession and use of small amounts of cannabis, so those figures represent the most important aspects of legalization.”

Recreational cannabis is also important to New Mexico’s economy, she said.

“We need new jobs in this state that’s not reliant on oil and gas,” she said. “We need small business opportunities for communities that have been harmed by the war on drugs, and this new regulated market does just that.”

State House Speaker Javier Martínez, an Albuquerque Democrat who was among the key sponsors of the recreational marijuana bill, said he’s “thrilled” by the opportunities the industry has created for New Mexicans, particularly small entrepreneurs, people of color and those living in rural communities.

“Cannabis legalization is a lot more than selling cannabis,” he said. “It really is all the ancillary services that go along with it, from education to farming techniques to manufacturing and packaging. It’s a big deal for the state, and I’m pleased that one year into it, these are the record numbers that we’re seeing.”

Regulation and Licensing Department Superintendent Linda Trujillo said in a statement New Mexico’s cannabis industry has shown great promise.

“We’re looking forward to even more growth in year two,” she said.