Annual legal marijuana sales at licensed dispensaries in Nevada have steadily decreased each year since the market peaked in 2021 at just over $1 billion, and during the last fiscal year sales totaled just $829.2 million, largely thanks to a burgeoning illicit trade.
According to data from the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board, the state’s underground marijuana market is worth between $242 million to $370 million in sales annually, The Nevada Independent reported, which is between a quarter and a third of all cannabis sales in the state.
Legal cannabis sales in 2022 declined to $965 million, then went down in 2023 to $848 million, and dipped once more last year, according to state figures.
But due to a lack of enforcement powers, the CCB is basically helpless to crack down on the surging illegal trade, The Independent reported. The regulatory agency is only allowed to oversee legal licensed businesses and doesn’t have police enforcement powers to go after unlawful operators.
“Who is going to provide the enforcement?” CCB Chairwoman Adriana Guzman said. “Because CCB doesn’t have the enforcement to be able to do those crackdowns. I mean, you would have to do undercover rings and bust these people, right?”
Layke Martin, executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Association trade group, also noted that various state rules often steer consumers to illicit sources – such as a ban on dispensaries on the Las Vegas Strip – and there’s a lack of real enforcement tools for the CCB.
Although a report from the CCB optimistically projected that the illicit market would shrink before the end of the decade, Martin told The Independent that that’s wishful thinking without a meaningful crackdown. She pointed to statistics from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which reported seizing twice as many illegal cannabis plants in 2022 as it did in 2021 in Nevada.
“Everything that we’re seeing in the market is actually the opposite,” Martin said. “Until we’re putting resources into enforcement to shut these businesses down, there’s no reason these unlicensed sales are going to stop.”
According to data from the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board, the state’s underground marijuana market is worth between $242 million to $370 million. Read More
