{"id":23475,"date":"2025-02-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cannabis-sales-declining-in-durango-across-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:37:14","slug":"cannabis-sales-declining-in-durango-across-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cannabis-sales-declining-in-durango-across-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis sales declining in Durango, across Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Karissa
Karissa Ollenberger, a budtender with Rocky Mountain High, fills a jar with marijuana buds on Friday at its location on north Main Avenue in Durango. Colorado marijuana sales have declined since 2021. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s cannabis industry is evolving with the legalization of marijuana in neighboring states and the adoption of CBD in other states where the drug is not legal.<\/p>\n

Giants in the cannabis industry \u2013 as well as other large companies \u2013 are scooping up smaller retailers, finding ways to operate with fewer employees and tightening their belts to address declining sales, said some Durango-area dispensary managers.<\/p>\n

But some industry workers say the decline in sales may be leveling out after spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people stayed home social distancing.<\/p>\n

Declining sales taxes a sign of industry struggles<\/div>\n

Declining sales are reflected in year-over-year state and local sales tax revenues. State marijuana sales tax revenues peaked in 2021 at nearly $423.5 million collected over the calendar year, Colorado Department of Revenue data show.<\/p>\n

In the years following, the revenue stream fell 23% to $325 million in 2022, then almost 16% to $274 million in 2023 and another 7% to $255 million last year.<\/p>\n

Marijuana sales tax revenues in the city of Durango also peaked in 2021 at $659,295 and have since declined to $349,239 in 2024.<\/p>\n

The state distributes the majority of its marijuana tax revenues to its Marijuana Tax Cash Fund (for health care and health education, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and law enforcement programs); and the remainder of revenues to local governments; a state public school fund; and the state general fund. The city of Durango, on the other hand, doesn\u2019t allocate marijuana tax revenues for specific uses.<\/p>\n

\"Declining
Declining sales are reflected in year-over-year state and local sales tax revenues. Colorado marijuana sales tax revenues peaked in 2021 at nearly $423.5 million; marijuana sales tax revenues in the city of Durango also peaked in 2021 at $659,295. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

All city marijuana tax revenues are received into the city\u2019s general fund, which funds police, parks and recreation, community development and internal services \u2013 among other uses, said Tom Sluis, city spokesman.<\/p>\n

He said the reduction of marijuana tax revenues in recent years doesn\u2019t have a noticeable impact on city services or programs, given it\u2019s such a small drop in the city\u2019s general fund bucket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a small amount of money, but it represents less than 1% of the total General Fund revenue for 2024, which was $48 million, and is 0.003% of the city\u2019s $132 million total revenue in 2024,\u201d he said. \u201cWe always balance the budget based on revenues and expenses, according to the priorities required by the public, but this nominal decrease in revenue is not going to affect our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But reduced sales has impacted Durango retailers.<\/p>\n

Shoptalk<\/div>\n

\u201cA number of different states surrounding Colorado have gone legal,\u201d said CJ Poulin, Durango Rec Room dispensary manager. \u201cSo the people from those states and the people from the states surrounding those states no longer feel as though they need to come to Colorado to purchase legal marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n

When licensed cannabis sales began in Arizona and New Mexico in 2021 and 2022, respectively, suddenly those states\u2019 residents no longer needed to visit Durango for the sole purpose of purchasing marijuana. Then Missouri began selling recreational pot in 2023.<\/p>\n

Poulin said Arizona and New Mexico joining the legalization bandwagon hit the Rec Room\u2019s sales the hardest. Texans, for example, no longer need to travel to Durango or Colorado generally for their weed. But Missouri\u2019s entrance onto the recreational cannabis scene \u201cate up\u201d former Kansas customers too, he said.<\/p>\n

\"Karissa
Karissa Ollenberger, a budtender with Rocky Mountain High, displays a glass bong on Friday at its location on north Main Avenue in Durango. Rocky Mountain High Manager Ken Aab said the COVID-19 pandemic inflated cannabis sales because many people were stuck at home social distancing, while simultaneously being encouraged to spend money in their local economies. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Rocky Mountain High Manager Ken Aab said sales have been declining since the COVID-19 pandemic, after sales initially spiked because people were isolated and were encouraged to \u201cbuy locally\u201d to boost the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt overinflated the market. During the COVID period, we were sitting at home, nothing to do,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were getting bonus checks, told to go spend money in the economy. There wasn\u2019t a lot of places open.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said CBD (a chemical in cannabis plants called cannabidiol that does not cause a \u201chigh\u201d and is applied in other health uses) is gaining acceptance in states with marijuana prohibitions, and even that may be reducing the number of cannabis customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewer products are topicals, like patches, for instance, as well as newer edible options like colas, drinks, fruit punches, that kind of thing, and a higher saturation in the gummy market of variety,\u201d Poulin said.<\/p>\n

He said that doesn\u2019t mean consumers are moving away from \u201ccombustibles\u201d like smokable weed, but there are many more ways of ingesting THC these days.<\/p>\n

\"Rocky
Rocky Mountain High Manager Ken Aab said the cannabis industry needs a \u201cfull-fledged national legalization program\u201d to stabilize the legal marijuana market. Such a national policy would even the playing field for cannabis businesses across the country, reducing prices for retailers and costs for customers. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Industry growing pains<\/div>\n

Aab said larger companies are buying retail stores and capturing larger shares of the cannabis market, just like what often happens in other industries.<\/p>\n

Aab said the healthiest thing for the industry is the legalization of cannabis at the federal or national level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a full-fledged national legalization program so that we can be a standard business market,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause then you\u2019ll be able to get supply where supply is cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Production costs in the state of Oregon, for example, will always be cheaper than the costs in Colorado, he said. Oregon is \u201cgluttonous\u201d with low-priced, good quality cannabis. If it were easier for a Durango dispensary to purchase product from a source in Oregon, that dispensary would be better positioned to offer lower prices and thus compete with businesses on a countrywide level.<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t an end-all, be-all solution to Colorado\u2019s cannabis growing pains, he said. But it is an important factor.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We need a full-fledged national legalization program,\u2019 dispensary manager says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,950,28,135,1610,1762],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-marijuana","tag-recreational-marijuana","tag-sales-tax"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78140,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23475\/revisions\/78140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23475"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}