The District of Columbia’s medical cannabis sales went through highs and lows in 2024. But overall the market sales fell below previous years despite the medical programs expansion bringing new stores to the city.
D.C.’s medical cannabis market hit a revenue of $51.8 million in combined sales over 2024. That is compared to $60 million in 2023 and $56.8 million in 2022.
Medical sales have struggled since Maryland launched its adult use market in July 2023. The data show a marked drop in D.C. sales once the market legalized across the District border. The market has also struggled to attract new patients while large numbers of registered patients expired throughout the year.
Part of the difficulty of attracting new medical patients has been attributed to a thriving unlicensed gifting market that just started facing enforcement last fall. Less than 50 unlicensed stores have been reported to be shut down by D.C.’s cannabis regulatory agency.
There were just over half a dozen medical dispensaries operating during 2024. New stores began opening in the spring. Despite newly open stores creeping up towards a dozen, double the number open at the start of 2024, sales did not climb in concert with new dispensaries.
Sales stayed equal to or even significantly lower than previous years in the D.C. medical cannabis market. The lowest month of sales bottomed out at $3.88 million while the highest sales came in $5.05 million in April.
The number of new registered patients continued a steady growth through most of 2024, but the growth was still slow and spread out of numerous new stores.
The last half of 2024 shows a more accurate picture into the market that D.C. medical dispensaries will be operating in during 2025. Sales averaged $4.3 million over the last half of 2024. The D.C. market has yet to see if the new stores coming online will be able to attract more patients to the medical market.
