Since legalized pot went into effect in Colorado with the start of 2014 the trend has been toward increasing revenue month-over-month. September represented a departure from that trend, with a retail total of $31,626,965, down 5.2 percent from August’s $34,125,200 according to new data released by Colorado’s Department of Revenue.
Many industry insiders were caught off-guard with the decline, especially considering that the previous month-over-month change (July to August) was positive by almost $5 million, or 16.5 percent.
Mike Elliot, Executive Director of the Marijuana Industry Group suggested what is known in Colorado as mud season, or the in-between months separating summer and winter.
“Since summer has come to a close, perhaps there wasn’t as much tourism in September,” he said to The Cannabist. “I imagine, though, that we are going to see a pretty big upswing in October, and some of that has to do with Aurora opening up licensed business. But it was just getting started in October, so the upswing might be more pronounced in November.”
A study done by the state and released in July estimated that tourists accounted 50% of retail sales in Denver, and as much as 90% in resort towns.
Regardless of the downward slope, Colorado has raked in more than $50 million in revenue directly from the newly legalized marijuana industry by way of taxes, licenses, and fees.
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