The hits keep coming for Breckenridge pot shops.
In 2024 the legal cannabis industry lost over $1 million, according to the town’s year-end finance report.
In 2023 the hits were even worse, down more than $2 million.
For more than three years now the dispensaries on Airport Road have been losing money every month. You have to go all the way back to June 2021 for the last time pot shops were in the green.
Months of double-digit declines mean the industry is back to where it was in 2014 – the first year of recreational sales – except this time there is no reality show on CNN.
Breck ‘weedtail’ revenue (via town of Breckenridge)
2013… $2,393,937 (final year medicinal only)
2014… $8,351,852 (first year medicinal and recreational)
2015… $7,791,474
2016… $9,192,345
2017… $9,714,804
2018… $9,976,918
2019… $10,254,704
2020… $11,582,448
2021… $12,148,814
2022… $10,322,606
2023… $8,037,258
2024… $7,032,490
So what’s happening?
The industry was hit by three seismic shifts in a decade.
First was consolidation. After riding a roller coaster in its first two years the local pot industry started growing steadily in 2016. Backcountry Cannabis Company, aka Breckenridge Cannabis Co. (the star of that CNN show), sold its license to Green Dragon Cannabis, one of the emerging big players. Most other locally owned shops did the same. These corporate pot shops helped tame the Wild West of pot’s early years.
Next came the pandemic, when state lawmakers said alcohol and cannabis were essentials, like groceries and gas. Breck marijuana sales erupted by nearly $2 million from 2019 to 2021. Every month sales were growing by double digits at least. This was the height of ski-town pot sales.
But the boom times didn’t last, and now the third shift – the novelty has worn off. Today nearly half of the U.S. has legal marijuana. So does Canada, Mexico and eight other nations globally. Dozens more have medical marijuana.
Now Colorado will experiment with another illegal substance gone legit, psilocybin. Starting first of this year applications opened for “medicinal healing centers,” where magic mushrooms are legal.
But this industry has been much slower to catch on. No one has applied for a license in Summit County and just over a dozen have applied statewide.