Missouri made waves in the U.S. cannabis industry when it legalized recreational cannabis on Nov. 8, 2022 and swiftly began licensed sales only three months later on Feb. 3, 2023. Among the slew of end-of-year cannabis data flowing in after welcoming in the new year, Missouri’s recreational cannabis market clearly had a solid start.
Not only did the state set a new monthly record for adult-use cannabis sales in December, but Missouri also recorded over $1 billion in total recreational sales since the market launch in February.
In December, retailers recorded a record $106.5 million in recreational cannabis sales (breaking the previous July 2023 record at $98.7 million), nearly $1.04 billion in adult-use sales for the entire year and more than $1.3 billion in legal cannabis sales (recreational and medical) throughout 2023, according to Missouri sales figures.
The all-time total for recorded cannabis sales in Missouri to date is $1.94 billion, with the first licensed medical sales beginning in Oct. 2020. This means that, with the launch of the adult-use market last year, Missouri more than doubled its total legal cannabis sales logged over more than two years through recreational sales alone in 11 months.
Medical cannabis sales for 2023 hit about $302.3 million, though data shows that—similar to other states that legalized recreational cannabis—sales have slowly dipped as recreational stores continued opening throughout the state.
Missouri hit a peak for medical cannabis sales in January 2023, at $37 million, though the last two months of the year show how rapidly the recreational market has altered medical sales. November logged the lowest total for the year at $16.4 million in medical sales followed by December at $16.8 million.
There is also a notable decrease in enrolled patients and caregivers in the state. In December 2023, there were 106,627 registered patients in the state’s medical program compared to 204,165 in December 2022.
Given the location of Missouri, namely its neighbors that have yet to usher in adult-use cannabis laws, there is also a hefty amount of demand across borders from states like Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma along those respective borders.
“Another thing we’re seeing is the closer the retail outlets are to adjoining states who don’t have an adult-use program or any program at all like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas, that’s where the biggest growth is,” Flora Farms COO and Co-owner Mark Hendren told KY3 in December.
Hendren also noted the traffic from cannabis consumers in Illinois, even though the state already has a recreational cannabis program, given the lower sales tax rate in Missouri.
While the market was quick to launch, Missouri is still in the process of introducing corresponding changes to the criminal justice system. The voter-approved cannabis law includes an automatic expungement provision, specifically that all nonviolent cases related to cannabis must be sealed or destroyed with involved persons cleared of their charges.
Despite missing a June 8, 2023 deadline, the state reported that it had expunged nearly 100,000 convictions from government records in Nov. 2023. As of Jan. 17, that number rose to 103,558 cases.
However, older court records are not digitized, so state courts recently asked lawmakers for an additional $3.7 million for the 2024 budget to continue the expungement process. Missouri state law deems that cannabis tax revenue must primarily go back into the state’s cannabis regulation agencies, with any left over money to go toward the court system to continue funding expungements for eligible cannabis-related convictions.
Courts are expected to expunge cannabis-related misdemeanors before June 8, 2024, and all felonies by Dec. 8, 2024.
