Enrollment in New Mexico’s medical cannabis program has grown 84 percent since Mar. 2016 pushing patient totals to 40,432 in April, according to an Albuquerque Journal report. Since Jan. 1 about 8,000 residents have signed up with the program and dispensary sales have nearly doubled from $9,964,922 from January to March last year to $19,021,494 from January to March this year.
The number of dispensaries in the state also increased from 36 in January 2016 to 56 in April. Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of Ultra Health, said the industry is experiencing “probably the single fastest” growth in the state.
“This is the one industry that has been a juggernaut of growth,” he said in the report. “Cannabis is being mainstreamed. Patients are coming out into the bright daylight and saying they advocate and support cannabis. No longer is it a hush-hush topic.”
Ultra Health reported $1.96 million sales in the first quarter of 2017 – the highest in the state – while R. Greenleaf Organics reported $1.76 million in sales. Verdes Foundation totaled $1.4 million; New MexiCann, $1.09 million; and Minerva Canna Group, $1.08 million.
In 2015 not a single New Mexico medical cannabis provider topped $1 million. In the fourth quarter of 2016, licensed cultivators doubled their 2015 quarter four production from 5,379 plants to 11,565.
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