U.S. Cannabis Market

The U.S. legal cannabis sales reached $17.5 billion in 2020 according to the Arcview/BDS report and experts estimate that 2021 sales passed $25 billion (about $18 billion of adult-use sales and $7 billion for medical sales) and by 2024 could be as high as $35 billion. Cannabis Business

Although the use of cannabis is illegal under the federal law and the federal government classifies cannabis as a schedule 1 drug, almost 76% of the U.S. states have legalized it in some form. Most states legalized it only for medical purposes, but 21 states – Alaska (2015), Arizona (2020), California (2016), Colorado (2012), Connecticut (2021), Illinois (2020), Maine (2017), Maryland (2023), Massachusetts (2016), Michigan (2018), Missouri (2022), Montana (2021), Nevada (2017), New Jersey (2021), New Mexico (2021), New York (2021), Oregon (2015), Rhode Island (2022), Vermont (2018), Virginia (2021) and Washington (2012) – have gone further, legalizing the recreational use. Cannabis Retail Business

As a result, 38 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have effective medical cannabis laws, and 21 states, the District of Columbia (2015), Guam (2019), and the Northern Mariana Islands (2018) now allow cannabis for recreational use.

The total economic output from legal cannabis grew 150% from $16 billion in 2017 to almost $40 billion in 2020, according to the “US Legal Cannabis: Driving $40 Billion Economic Output” report released by Arcview Market Research, in partnership with BDS Analytics.