Colorado sells more than $1 billion of Marijuana in 2016

Posted by Sagar Satapathy on February 13, 2017.

The Colorado Department of Revenue on Thursday released tax data showing that the dispensaries of the state bagged around $1.3 billion in medical and recreational marijuana sales in 2016. It displays the third straight year for growth since the state legalized recreational marijuana sales in 2014.

In the first year the marijuana sales totaled $699.2 million in the State, while it jumped up to $996.2 million in 2015, the data says.

 In 2016, recreational marijuana accounted for $875 million of the sales total, while $438 million of medical marijuana was sold in the state. The combined sales for July, August and September were $376.6 million while over $106 million marijuana sales occurred in last November.

Colorado made close to $200 million in tax and fees revenue last year.

Marijuana tax revenue helps fund school construction projects and goes toward other areas such as public health and law enforcement in the state.

However, the new U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions has shown concern about Colorado’s marijuana industry growing.

 “Colorado was one of the leading states that started the movement. That suggests that marijuana is not dangerous,” said Sessions in a 2016 hearing. “Good people don’t use marijuana,” he added.

Since Sessions now in charge, there is fear among those in the marijuana business that sales could be stopped all together.

The Colorado Department of Revenue’s tax data does not reveal information about transactions, so it’s difficult to know the impact of price declines on the overall sales totals.

Marijuana sales are illegal under federal laws, though twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana for medical use and eight of them legalized it for recreational purpose.

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