Ohio Patient Demand For Cannabis Flower Explodes Ahead of Adult-Use Launch

Ohio’s medical cannabis program is a little odd in that it requires flower to be packaged in one-tenth ounce units at retail versus the traditional eighth. The program also forbids patients from smoking the flower that’s readily available across the state: Vaporization is the permitted method. 

But that didn’t stop demand for cannabis flower from reaching an all-time high in 2023.

The Buckeye State’s licensed dispensaries reported selling nearly 87,000 pounds of “plant material” last year, representing a 42% increase from the roughly 61,000 pounds sold in 2022, according to sales data from the state’s Department of Commerce.

This should come as no surprise for many of the state’s original operators, who have experienced significant demand growth for dried flower each year since the retail program commenced in January 2019.

Despite this increased demand for flower, overall dispensary sales only grew slightly to $484.5 million in 2023, representing a 2.9% increase from the roughly $471 million in sales from 2022, according to the Department of Commerce.

This is a major plateau in the year-over-year trends for Ohio’s 5-year-old medical market, where sales originally grew 306% in 2020, followed by 68% in 2021, and then 23% in 2022 as more patients and retail options were added to the program.

As of Nov. 30, Ohio had roughly 175,500 patients who had both an active registration and an active recommendation to access the state’s medical cannabis program, according to the Department of Commerce.

Despite an increase for demand, Ohio’s medical cannabis sales only grew slightly in 2023 particularly because of plunging prices on dispensary shelves.

Notably, the average flower price for one-tenth ounce at retail was $16.93 in December 2023, representing a 23% decrease from the average price of $22.03 per tenth in December 2022, according to the Department of Commerce. This equates to roughly $169 per ounce compared to $220 per ounce for those respective years.

At the beginning of 2021, the average price per tenth was roughly $31, which equates to roughly $38 per eighth for comparison to the unit size that is more commonly sold in other states.

And the average price for dried flower has a drastic impact on the overall sales numbers in the Buckeye State.

Ohio’s licensed dispensaries reported roughly $252 million in total flower sales in 2023, which represented 52% of the overall market for the year, according to the Department of Commerce. Keep in mind that since smoking or combusting cannabis is prohibited in the Buckeye State, prerolls don’t exist in the regulated marketplace.

Meanwhile, Ohio patients spent nearly $151 million on oil for vape sales in 2023, accounting for roughly 31% of the market. They also spent more than $69 million on edibles, representing 14.3% of the market.

These three categories—flower, vapes and edibles—combined to account for more than 97% of sales in 2023.

Overall, since Ohio launched medical cannabis sales five years ago, roughly 370,000 unique patients have spent more than $1.6 billion at licensed dispensaries, including the purchase of more than 227,000 pounds of flower, according to the Department of Commerce.

At the end of 2023, there were 37 cultivators and 120 dispensaries with certificates of operation to service the marketplace.

This comes at a time when Ohio is gearing its transition to an adult-use cannabis market following the November election, when 57.2% of voters backed Issue 2 to make their state the 24th in the nation to legalize the plant for those 21 and older.

Commercial sales for adult-use cannabis are scheduled to begin as soon as September 2024 under the voter-approved state statute.

Currently, Ohioans 21 and older can possess up to 2.5 ounces of flower or 15 grams of extract and home cultivate up to six plants per person or a maximum of 12 plants per household.

A proposal passed by the Ohio Senate would potentially speed up the timeline to launch sales as well as limit home cultivation to six plants per household—in addition to increasing the excise tax, among other changes—but Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens dismissed the idea of making altercations to the state’s new cannabis policies so soon after voters made their voices heard.