March 2018 was a record month for recreational marijuana sales in the state of Colorado, with sales hitting  $106 million, besting the previous record of $102 million set in August last year, reports The Department of Revenue.
But medical marijuana sales hit a slump, which were highest in August 2016 at almost $42 million. In March 2018, they were only a little more than $29 million.
“A lot of people are choosing to not go through the sort of rigmarole of going to see a doctor and getting a card from the state and are instead just going to their local recreational marijuana store where prices have become somewhat in line with those of medical marijuana,” attorney Brian Vicente of Vicente Sederberg LLC who specializes in marijuana law said.
“I do think we’re going to continue to see probably a decline in medical sales as people shift over their consumer habits to the recreational side,” he said. “They don’t have to go and get a doctor’s card. They’re paying more in tax but prices are becoming lower and it’s not as bad on their wallet.”
Vicente expects this trend of higher recreational sales to eventually level off. But right now, those higher sales are good news for the state since recreational pot is taxed more than medicinal.
You can see exactly how much pot was sold each month since March 2014 in the graph above.
