In 11 months, Colorado sold 900 million $ of cannabis

The latest Colorado cannabis sales figures have just been released. After a sharp decline in October, the cannabis sales and taxes collected were maintained in November, according to data from the State Revenue Department.

While data for the month of December will not be available until February, the global cannabis sales in 2015 already account for 900 million $. Sales rose by 4% between October and November, to 51 million $, including 29.6 million $ for medical cannabis.

The cannabis sales in Colorado had risen sharply in August, with 59.2 million $ harvested for recreational cannabis, and 41.41 million $ for medical cannabis. The decline in the autumn months is mainly due to the drop in tourism and the arrival of cannabis harvests from legal crops in the state or illegal crops in California or Oregon.

In 2014, around 700 million $ of recreational and medical cannabis were sold in Colorado. In 11 months, 2015 has already surpassed the previous year's figures, with a possible total by year's end in excess of $1 billion.

Cannabis is taxed three ways in Colorado:

• standard sales tax of 2.9%
• a special tax on cannabis of 10%
• an excise duty of 15% on quantities of cannabis in circulation

In November, Colorado collected 10.7 million $ in «recreational» taxes and over 1.5 million on ’medical« taxes, pushing total cumulative revenue to over 121 million $.

The most closely watched figure in the state is undoubtedly the 15% in excise duty, the income from which is earmarked for school construction projects. In November, this tax brought in over 3 million $ (2.6 million in October), reaching a total of 31.4 million $ so far for 2015.