Cannabis sales are going through the roof and the ancillary CBD industry is making a killing with innovators like West Coast Venture Corp. (OTC: WCVC) leading the way
Since its legalization in 2014, the state of Colorado has earned $1 billion from the cannabis market, with an incredible upward trend embodied by Colorado’s own West Coast Ventures Corp. (OTC: WCVC) making waves.
Colorado exceeded $1 billion in government revenue from the cannabis trade. This is not an insignificant achievement for the federal state, perhaps difficult to imagine back in 2014, at the time of legalization.
Revenue was highest in April and May 2019, with about $24 million a month. This is an ever-increasing pace: three and a half years after legalization, $500 million in total sales revenue was reached; later, it took less than two years to double revenue.
Cannabis sales contribute to the state’s so-called “general economic reserve”, as well as replenishing funds for education and health care, including mental health services and drug prevention programs.
WCVC is a local company that represents America’s first CBD Restaurant stock. Through Illegal Brands CBD the company has made an effort to educate consumers about the potential health benefits of CBD. Its flagship Illegal Burger restaurants have already seen huge success.
The Illegal Burger Writer Square restaurant, located in Downtown Denver is on track to exceed $1 million sales this year. The newer Illegal Burger Citiset location is already on the way to exceed $700,000 in sales during its first year of operations, which is an impressive feat. The company plans to build on this with new restaurant locations, including Illegal Pizza.
These figures chimed with those recently released by the Coloradan government. The state has made more than $6 billion in total sales since legalization.
April and May are the months with the highest revenue since 2014; in particular, April has been the highest ever, with $24.2 million.
Since July 2017, total monthly revenue from marijuana sales has never fallen below $20 million. To give a measure of growth, it is enough to consider that in February 2014 – the first month after legalization – the total revenue for the State was 3.5 million dollars.
According to Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado, the sector is rapidly helping to create tens of thousands of jobs and tax revenues for the state, as well as reducing crime.
Illinois has recently become the eleventh U.S. state to approve cannabis for recreational use, following the example of Washington, Alaska, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, Michigan and Nevada. The legislation will officially enter into force on 1 January 2020.
More than 30 states have already passed medical marijuana legislation, while it was November 2016 when voters in California decided to legalize recreational marijuana. At the moment, however, the industry is struggling to compete with the black market, as well as facing all the obstacles in banking access and taxation.
This does not make business any easier, so much so that last month California’s new state budget plan reduced projections for cannabis revenues by $223 million. This is also part of the reason that CBD companies are seeing such strong success, they don’t have to compete with the black market.
Polis said that the cannabis business will be able to “develop a much larger economic engine for the state than just tax revenues from marijuana sales:
“We want to make sure that in 10 years’ time the points of sale, the production plants, the chemicals used, all the stages of the supply chain will be established here in Colorado, with successful companies that will feed a national multibillion dollar industry.”
There are currently 2,917 licensed companies in Colorado, and 41,076 are licensed to operate in the cannabis business.
In the statement accompanying the sales data, the state has set out several objectives to be achieved in order to achieve ever greater success in the sector; among these, the definition of the size of an edible portion to be sold at retail and a focus on production that monitors supply and demand in order to protect consumers as much as possible.
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