Massachusetts adult-use cannabis sales have cleared nearly $400 million in Year One, reports MJBiz Daily. For all of 2019, MJ Biz projects that Massachusetts retail sales will land around $420 million [Nice. –Ed.], which breaks down to about $1.3 million in sales per retailer in the Bay State. But the glowing news doesn’t stop there, Massachusetts retailers are projected to hit a billion in sales by 2021 according to MJBD, too. We’re a little skeptical of that figure (we’ll get to it), but let’s take a look at how Massachusetts is doing.

Massachusetts, not doing bad after a prolonged delay

There were ample speed bumps in getting to this point, but Massachusetts is seemingly humming along in retail sales. We’re a little dubious of the volume of sales vs. the total sales numbers, due to the low amount of retail locations –still only 36 after a year. Our anticipation is that as more retail locations open up, consumer prices should go down a tad and that per store/per consumer prices will go down, but that the increase in locations should pick up any slack in total sales. We’ll see, but that’s our hope for Massachusetts in the next two years.

In the short term, $400 million is a very strong number for a Year One scenario. The raw figure is all the more impressive considering the significant supply problems that many retailers faced earlier this year. Additionally impressive is that these sales numbers were generated with not a single retail location in Boston proper.

Massachusetts retail projections still face headwinds

Still, along with a lack of retail locations distributed across the state, Massachusetts, and Boston notably, are facing social equity issues that have to be addressed (although Boston’s making strides) and ongoing federal investigations regarding corruption in municipalities across the state.

Those above issues will only compound problems with the state’s backlog of applications. Additionally, with the aftershocks of VapeGate and with many investors hedging against backing cannabis companies, we think that a billion in total sales by 2021 is a little high. Still, Massachusetts, despite taking its lumps, is moving forward with a surprisingly robust legal adult-use market.