After Two Years of Falling, Legal Weed Prices Are Climbing Back Up

Colorado marijuana prices have been slowly increasing in 2023, according to new data from the state Department of Revenue.

After falling for nearly two straight years, the DOR's median price per pound for marijuana flower finally went up this spring, going from $649 to $703 from April to July. Since then, median marijuana prices have continued rising, state data shows, hitting $750 per pound in September. Compared to the same time last year, marijuana prices have increased over 13 percent, according to the DOR.

After record-breaking performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado's marijuana industry experienced a surge in growers and a surplus of product. The oversupply and increased competition from states new to legal marijuana had put wholesale prices and commercial pot sales in a downward spiral across the country, particularly in Colorado, where nearly 30 percent of the state's marijuana workforce was cut from 2022 to 2023.

However, much of the state's surplus biomass has now been sold off, according to a handful of dispensary managers and growers, while hundreds of licensed grows have paused operations or closed altogether. According to the MED, the number of marijuana business licenses dropped from more than 3,500 in 2021 to around 2,700 as of June, with growing operations accounting for the majority of expired licenses.

Fewer grows and less surplus product have allowed marijuana prices to inch back up in dispensaries as summer ends. Not only have smokeable flower prices increased, but the median price per pound of cannabis allocated for extraction — an indicator of surplus flower as well as hash and infused-product prices — has increased nearly 145 percent since July, according to the DOR, from $143 to $350.

Monthly sales figures from the DOR show that medical and recreational dispensary sales increased about 5 percent from June to July, eclipsing $137.3 million. Still, that sales total was about 11 percent less than the $153.9 million tallied in July 2022, and over 32 percent less than the $202.8 million collected in July 2021.