Medical marijuana sales surpass $330 million | News

Different space dispensaries embrace Enlightened Hashish for Folks in Morrilton, which opened on Aug. 3, 2020, and has bought 282.65 kilos of medical marijuana.

Enlightened Hashish for Folks in Clarksville opened on Aug. 7, 2020, and has bought 236.49 kilos of medical marijuana.

For the reason that first dispensary opened in mid-2019, Arkansans have spent $330.4 million to acquire 48,914 kilos of medical marijuana. Gross sales will surpass 50,000 kilos throughout the subsequent week, in accordance with Scott Hardin, spokesman for the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Fee.

“When Arkansans voted to approve a medical marijuana program in November 2016, we assumed there would in the end be someplace between 40,000 and 50,000 sufferers within the state,” Hardin mentioned. “At this time, there are nearly 80,000 Arkansans with a affected person card. We merely didn’t know what the response could be to a medical marijuana program in Arkansas.

“Whereas medical marijuana was permitted by voters in 2016, the primary dispensary didn’t open till Might 2019 as a consequence of quite a lot of points, together with authorized delays. For the reason that first dispensary opened, the state has collected greater than $30 million in taxes on medical marijuana. That may be a results of two state taxes, the common 6.5 % state gross sales tax together with a 4.0 % privilege tax established by the state legislature. Our preliminary expectations for each gross sales and sufferers have been surpassed.”

The Releaf Middle (Bentonville) is the primary dispensary within the state to achieve 5,000 kilos in gross sales. Since opening in August 2019, The Releaf Middle has bought greater than 5,249 kilos to sufferers.

There are presently 33 dispensaries in operation all through Arkansas with 5 which might be working towards opening for enterprise (38 dispensaries have been licensed).

The 5 working towards opening are 3J Investments in Lamar, Pure Root Wellness in Fayetteville, Pine Bluff Agriceuticals in Pine Bluff (permitted to open by ABC, will open this month), Missco Hashish in Jonesboro and Natures Herbs and Wellness in Pine Bluff.

The Arkansas Division of Well being stories 77,029 energetic affected person playing cards. Arkansans are spending a median of $885,000 on medical marijuana purchases per day.