It took less than three years for the volume of flower sold in Colorado’s adult use market to surpass that in its medical market.
In 2014, the volume of flower sold in the medical market was more than 2.8x that in the adult use market (110,000 lbs. vs. 39,000 lbs.). However, by 2016, sold volume in the adult use market beat the medical market’s by 10% (176,000 lbs. vs. 160,000 lbs.).
One driver of the trend may be Colorado’s relatively high rate of cannabis use: 14% of Coloradans ages 18 and up, report regular use, one of the highest U.S. rates; meantime, at their peak medical cannabis patients accounted for 2.5% of the population.
The significant disparity between the total cannabis-consuming population compared to all medical patients is a key element of why long-term projections have the adult use market driving significantly greater revenue than the medical market for the foreseeable future.
