Image: Chris Greninger/Unsplash
The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) recently published January 2023 tax collections, allowing us to extrapolate sales made in December 2022 in the state’s medical cannabis program. December 2022 sales, at $64.1 million, were up 7% from November 2022 sales of $59.9 million, but down 8.8% from sales of $70.3 million in December 2021.
Oklahoma has the steadiest wholesale prices in the nation over the past several months, which suggests supply is roughly equal to demand. Given the number of licenses in the state, it appears out-of-state demand is siphoning off supply. When asked what was behind declining sales in Colorado, a source simply said, “Oklahoma.”
OMMA officials have been working to reduce the number of licenses in the state, but the effort has stalled over the past several months with cultivation licenses ticking down very slowly toward 7,000 from over 9,400 in December 2021. The number of dispensaries continues to grow with the state adding 500 such licenses in the past year. Processor numbers are also climbing with over 200 licenses issued in the past year.
According to Gallup Poll figures, 16% of the nation’s over 21 population are regular cannabis users; in Oklahoma that comes out to 382,979 potential regular consumers in the state. As of January 11, 2023, there are 373,525 medical cannabis patients. There are 54 patients for every one cultivator, 138 registered patients for every dispensary, and one processor for every 222 patients. Oklahoma is the most over-licensed state in the nation and, while officials recently said “notices were going out” after they inspected every licensed facility in the state, there has been no appreciable reduction in licenses at this time.
Subscribers to our CORE and PREMIUM products have access to several interactive charts that track the license counts, sales tax, and cannabis sales revenue in Oklahoma dating back to 2018. Subscribers can also access similar data for many other states that we track; the most comprehensive collection of state reported cannabis sales, tax revenue, and licensing data available in one spot. View all of the Interactive Charts available here.
