PORTLAND, Ore., March
20, 2024 – PRESS RELEASE – Whitney Economics, a global leader in
cannabis and hemp business consulting, data, and economic research, released its
2024 U.S. legal cannabis sales forecast. The 2024 forecast for legal adult-use
and medical sales will top $31.4 billion, an increase in overall sales of $2.6
billion from 2023.This represents a year-over-year (YoY) growth rate of 9.14%.
Cannabis
legal sales have been suppressed since the end of the pandemic, partly due to
changes in consumer purchasing behavior, macro issues such as higher interest
rates, declining cannabis business conditions and slower than normal regulatory
implementations in new markets. Despite these headwinds, growth rates have
remained positive in the U.S. overall, however, legal cannabis revenues
declined in 10 states in 2023.
Beau
Whitney, chief economist at Whitney Economics, said, "We are quite proud
of our predictive analytics that resulted in last year's forecast versus
actuals being 98.3% accurate. Although there are uncertainties in the near-term
outlook, demand for legal cannabis in the U.S. will remain strong throughout
the decade, with growth coming from newer markets."
Growth
in the states that have matured since rolling out their regulatory programs in
the period of 2014 to 2019 have peaked, meaning future growth will come from
the newer markets.
As
part of the annual forecast refresh process, the firm examined industry trends,
the effectiveness and pace of state ramps, the level of influence of the
illicit market on a state, previous cannabis revenues in the state, as well as
regulatory and legislative policy. It also looks for potential changes in the
legal states or transitions from medical to adult-use regulatory structures.
The annual refresh is a comprehensive process.
Based
on the 2024 forecast, the U.S. legal cannabis sales forecast for future years
are as follows:
2024:
$31.4 billion (9.1% growth from 2023)
2025: $35.2 billion (12.1% growth from 2024)
2030: $67.2 billion
2035: $87.0 billion
The
forecast does not incorporate any changes to the scheduling of cannabis by the
federal government. These numbers also do not include demand for industrial
hemp.
"Our
firm provides these updated U.S. numbers as a service to help educate others on
key issues in the cannabis industry. A more detailed, state-by-state summary
can be obtained for a fee," Whitney said.
Whitney
Economics also publishes analysis on adult-use, medical and industrial cannabis
state and federal policy, employment, supply (both illicit and legal), global
demand by country, business conditions, risk analysis and other insights.
To
learn more, contact Beau Whitney, chief economist, at [email protected]
or visit whitneyeconomics.com.
