So last year, August 29th, 2023 to be exact, I wrote an article for the Beard Bros titled “A Look Inside Maine’s Medical and Adult Use Cannabis Markets” essentially looking at both markets taxable sales data provide by the state’s website. What does that data look like almost a year later?
Well, as predicted in the 2023 article Maine’s total number of caregivers shrunk from approximately 2100 to approximately 1600. Even though the total number of caregivers has decreased, their taxable sales are still out performing Maine’s highly regulated adult use program every single month since inception of the adult use program in October 2020.
To anyone not familiar how Maine’s medical/ adult use rules differ; the biggest thing to know is that our medical program has a low barrier to entry and does NOT have state mandated testing nor tracking (like Metrc), over several years the local farmers and patients fought about the cost of these services to make them mandated by the state, the legitimacy of labs, the monopolization of Metrc, and internet reliability in rural areas in Maine for online software programs to keep them out.
Now, the adult use on the other hand, has done the opposite, larger barrier to entry, they DO have state mandated testing, Metrc, and expense state mandated security.
To your left is a chart our local newspaper, Portland Press Herald published in October 2019 saying what the “experts” believed our sales revenue would be for our Adult use cannabis program in blue. The yellow in the chart represents what we finished with. As you can see, 4 years after our Adult use program launched the “experts” have been off a combined over HALF A BILLION DOLLARS!
This data alone gives big pump and dump style scheme vibes. I personally laugh about how many people were probably completely fooled by this data and anyone that made financial investments off data like this. Because let’s put our business hats on for one second here. =
If you were an investor thinking the Adult use program ALONE, would be making 400 million by 2024? In a population of 1.3 million (approximately 260,000 are under 18) so really the legally sellable population is closer to 1.1 million? And let’s say for easy math half dont use cannabis, so even then your sellable population is down 550k!
Again 50% or half is a random guess, but even if you go more or less the SELLABLE population size is probably going to be under 1 million people and that’s year round residents not talking tourists. Obviously population fluctuates during the summer season for tourism but does that increase the sales for the adult use market? Let’s look at the data!
Let’s start with the year 2023 of June, one of the busiest tourist months of the year for Maine. The Maine’s Medical program did almost 31 million in taxable sales while Maine’s Adult Use barely broke 20 million. In the beginning of the Adult use program licensees and other stakeholders were all shouting “this is a tourist market” (which I even called it a “Tourist Trap Market” last year article) but as you see in the data while yes, the sales do increase in the summers months for adult use, it hasn’t passed the medical market in ANY month.
So even with tourists coming to smoke cannabis in Maine, most are still leaning towards the medical program for their needs despite the decrease in caregivers. Another point to point out is the fact that in 2023 Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy and their Director John Hudak is going/went as State Rep. David Boyer described “Reefer Madness 2.0” style media blitz in what seems to be an attempt to slow down the legacy medical program.
In one interview Director John Hudak describes himself as a “medical patient” but doesn’t use the Maine’s Medical program simply because it isn’t tracked or tested and described it as a “full stop” for him. Director Hudak would go on interviews expressing the danger of the medical programs policies or lack thereof though the program has been steadily evolving since 1999 at the pace of the people, not corporations or outside entities. BUT despite the smear campaign that the department is continuing trying to do the data doesn’t lie. People are still buying Maine’s Medical cannabis more than the adult use at this time.
So what’s next?In my opinion/prediction Maine OCP is going/already started last session, they know they lost a lot of the respect of the VLA members and since farmers and patients fill the seats, what your going to see is associations that agree with departments view points, so they use the associations as scapegoat.
And it wont even be a cannabis association per say, it will be like a Medical association, or like a Moms against Drugs association, the department doesn’t want to get their hands dirty if they don’t have to, they know they are on thin ice with the VLA. Example: Change a definition slightly to f*ck over remaining caregivers. That’s an article for another day.
Written By Derek Shirley
Derek Shirley was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of 19, he received a felony for 4 ounces of cannabis. After, he became a “cannabis nomad” living in Ohio, Arizona, and Maine, which he now calls home, and lives with his wife Sequoia and son Haze.
Being a cannabis nomad had its advantages, like relying on all markets for his medical cannabis needs which gives him a unique perspective of the cannabis markets. Currently, Derek operates People Not Parties Consulting, which helps local people and small businesses navigate their local and state governments without picking a political party specializing in protecting and preserving the small medical cannabis farmers of Maine. For fun, Derek enjoys screen printing and making cannabis memes under the pseudonym @gettinghighwithcats on IG.
