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The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) recently issued data for July 2022 adult use sales on the state’s Open Data Platform. July adult use retail sales set a new high for 2022 at $132.5 million, up 8.2% from June 2022 sales of $122.6 million (upwardly revised), but down 8.8% from July 2021 sales of $145.4 million, an indication of the damage done by a bruising sell-off in cannabis prices. The July 2021 weighted average wholesale price for a pound of cannabis in the state was $3,534; the average wholesale price in July 2022 is down over 50%.
Average daily sales in July 2022 were up 4.7% from June 2022 average daily sales (upwardly revised) of $4 million. Monthly sales and average daily sales indicate demand is still growing in Massachusetts even as prices drop.
The CCC also provides information on the number of licensed and operating cannabis businesses in the state. The table below depicts the last three months’ count of licenses with permission to commence operations. The pace of license issuance appears to have picked up a bit with a notable increase in cultivators and product manufacturers.
As noted above, Massachusetts cannabis prices have undergone a shellacking, with average monthly prices falling 59% between October 2021 and August 2022. The precipitous price loss has in part been blamed on Multi-State Operators opening the spigot in January 2022 and selling off wholesale inventory in an effort to pay off loans, perhaps dating back to 2019. More recently, price has gained 7.8% between July 2022 and August 2022, but Massachusetts growers will be bringing in an outdoor harvest this fall. While the volume is uncertain, it is expected that consumers will be enthusiastic buyers of less expensive cannabis.
Prices at the retail level have fallen for 19 months in a row, breaching the $10 per gram level in August 2022 for the first time. (While CCC data shows the average retail price of a gram of flower below $10 in April 2020, adult use sales were suspended for the entire month as part of the state’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic.) The chart below depicts Massachusetts gram prices from November 2018, when the adult use market opened, to present.