The medical marijuana business in Arkansas has seen tremendous success in the past year despite coronavirus.
The state’s Medical Marijuana industry saw a 900% increase from 2019 in 2020.
According to Scott Hardin with the Arkansas Department of Finance, the Marijuana industry in 2020 shattered everyone’s expectations. He said that “overall Arkansasans spent over $200 million since that first dispensary opened, but if you are just looking at 2020 alone we are looking at 180 million dollars.”
Hardin says of the $180 Million of marijuana sold in the state of Arkansas equates to 26 thousand pounds and he thinks COVID-19 has a lot to do with the increase in sales.
“The CDC said everyone needs to have a two week supply of all medication it looks like to us quite a few people did that,” he explained.
Stimulus payments may have contributed to some of the sales according to Jordan Mooney, a manager at Fort Cannabis Co.
Mooney said, “we noticed a sharp day of sales when those payments were said to be going out.”
Arkansas has reeled in quite a nice penny with all of the sales going on. Hardin says, “in state taxes, you can take 10.5% of that and that is what the state is going to be collected, so ruffly $20 million overall collected.”
