On January 1st, the state of Montana will be launching its $325 million adult-use marijuana market.
The state’s cannabis businesses are gearing up for the scheduled Jan. 1 launch of the nation’s newest adult-use program.
The market in Montana is projected to top $300 million in annual sales by 2025. A substantial demand is expected to come from tourists. Last year, 11.1 million people visited the state, according to a University of Montana study.
The MJBizFactbook projects that recreational marijuana sales will reach $90 million in 2022 and $325 million by 2025.
“The industry has only been able to expand about 30%” so far while it will need to boost capacity multifold,” said concerned Pepper Petersen, CEO of the Montana Cannabis Guild, an industry organization.
“I’m struggling to see that there will be enough flower to meet demand for residents, much less for the tourists,” Petersen said.
The adult-use legislation in the state goes as follows:
A THC potency cap on flower of 35%.
A cap on edibles of 100 milligrams per package.
A 20% tax on product sales, with an optional local tax of 3%.
A delay in the adult-use start from Oct. 1, 2021, to Jan. 1, 2022.
Petersen said he supported the cap on edibles. “I wanted to make sure we kept a pretty tight lid on edibles,” he said, “because that seems to be the place where the most problems take place, because ingestion (effects) are delayed.”
The state has 437 licensed dispensaries, 392 cultivators and 208 processors for its medical marijuana industry, according to the state’s September market report.
