So far this year, Virginia, New York, and New Mexico have legalized adult-use sales, bringing the total of states with adult-use cannabis to 18, in addition to the District of Columbia, Guam and Northern Marianas Islands. With the passage of legalization in these states, more than 108 million Americans aged 21 and over, 43.2% of the country’s adult population, now have access to legal cannabis. While expansion of access to any new states is cause for optimism, these recent moves are notable due to the momentum they will add to further legalization efforts.

More than two years after pledging support for cannabis legalization, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a legalization bill Wednesday morning that will pave the way for an adult-use market to be launched sometime in early 2022. The states medical program saw slow growth from its start, just reaching $111 million in sales in 2020, but the legalization of adult-use will reposition New York to be one of the biggest cannabis markets in the country by 2026.

Gov. Cuomo has signaled his openness to adult-use cannabis since early 2019, but disputes over licensure, tax rates and the allocation of cannabis revenue have blocked the progress of adult-use legalization until just last week. While previous efforts focused on using the state budget as a method to legalize, the Governor’s office and legislature agreed on a separate bill, which passed through the legislature on March 30, 2021 and was signed into law the next morning. BDSA predicts that sales will start in Q1 2022.

BDSA’s Chief Executive Officer, Micah Tapman and Vice President of Insights and Analytics, Kelly Nielsen recently joined Canaccord Genuity’s Bobby Burleson for a lively discussion surrounding BDSA’s latest market forecast. Here are the highlights!

With the launch of sales on January 22, 2021, Arizona became the 10th state with adult-use cannabis retail. The state is already home to one of the most developed medical cannabis markets in the country, as BDSA’s retail sales tracking shows that Arizona brought in over $1 billion in medical sales for 2020. While Arizona’s market will likely deal with issues that are common in new adult-use markets, such as undersupply and limited retail coverage, BDSA expects Arizona to see strong adult-use sales in 2021.

With the results of the 2020 election finalized, one of the clear winners was the cannabis industry, with every legalization proposal on the ballot passing. Voters in 2020 showed that cannabis legalization has grown in popularity to the point that it is no longer a partisan issue, but the progress seen in legalization at the state level has been accompanied largely by inaction at the federal level. The election of Joe Biden to the presidency and the recent progress of cannabis legislation in the House of Representatives give hope that the gridlock on nationwide cannabis reform may be coming to an end in 2021.

Acceptance of legal cannabis is rising across the United States and the 2020 election season was an eventful one for the cannabis legalization movement.

Global legal cannabis spending is forecast to reach $47 billion in 2025, a number too big to ignore for many companies and industries. The U.S. will continue to be the largest global market, driven by more and more adult use markets opening.