2025 Market Facts VRP - Flipbook - Page 92
84 | ECO NO MI C PRO FI L E & MA R K ET FACT S 2025
COURTESY THE CANNABIST
CO..
A Medicine Man
budtender displays
a marijuana bud.
CANNABIS
Cannabis sales, prices continue slump
as psychedelics industry emerges
Colorado’s cannabis industry has been a national trailblazer
for more than a decade since recreational pot began being
legally sold in 2014. But the industry has faced growing pains in
recent years, with sales falling precipitously since peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marijuana sales fell by roughly $20 million during the first
two months of 2025, Colorado Department of Revenue figures
show.
Larimer and Boulder counties were both in the top five of
Colorado counties for cannabis sales last year, representing 8.2%
and 7.2%, respectively, of statewide sales.
Declining prices have played a role in the downward trend of
totals sales receipts at Colorado dispensaries. “The average price
per gram of recreational marijuana flower was $4.83 in 2021,
$3.84 in 2022, $3.48 in 2023, and $3.39 as of September 2024,”
according to CU’s Colorado Business Economic Outlook report.
While the cannabis industry may be slightly contracting, a
different but similar industry is gaining a foothold in Colorado:
psychedelics. With the 2022 passage of Colorado Proposition
122: Natural Medicine Health Act, voters decriminalized the
possession and use of certain psychedelic plants and fungi, and
municipalities around the region have been crafting regulatory
frameworks for therapy businesses that utilize these drugs.
Last year the University of Colorado created the CU Denver
Center for Psychedelic Research and Boulder’s Naropa University began offering a certificate in psychedelic-assisted therapies
in the fall 2024 semester.
