Recreational Marijuana nears a million dollars in sales for first week

PROVIDENCE - It’s been a week since the sale of recreational marijuana has been legal in the Ocean State. 

While medical marijuana has been sold for years, the introduction of recreational sales has already made an impact on dispensaries. 

“Business is up about 20% across the board, that includes both on the medical and on the adult use side,” Chris Reilly, the Spokesperson for the Slater Center said. 

“We have a lot of new customers coming in daily and they’ve been coming in consistently, we opened at the right time,  just in time for recreation,” Eddy Keegan, the Chief Operating Officer of Mother Earth Wellness in Pawtucket added. 

In just the first week since pot has been legalized, from Dec. 1 to Dec. 7, Rhode Island dispensaries have sold $786,088.73 dollars of recreational marijuana. 

In that same week, $845,403.95 dollars were sold in medicinal pot. 

That totals $1,631,492.68 in sales in one week. 

Recreational marijuana is also sold with a 20% tax as opposed to medicinal marijuana’s 7% sales tax. 

So what does it total out to in the first week? The state made $157,217.74 in taxes off of recreational marijuana last week. 

“That includes the sales tax of 7%, a local sales tax that goes back to the city of Providence, and a 10% excise tax that goes back to the state,” Reilly explained to ABC6. 

Mother Earth Wellness has only been open for two and a half weeks, but since rec sales were added, they told ABC6 they have seen thousands of patients in that time, and per day – between 300 and 400 customers. 

But the next challenge for dispensaries is finding a way to reach new customers. 

“It’s very difficult to promote our business right now with the way things are as far as advertising,” Keegan said. 

“We’re not allowed to advertise our business so most of what we do is word of mouth, so that’s why there’s been a steady growth of people, but we’d like to see that uptick even more through advertising,” Reilly added. 

The total number of sales in December won’t be available till early 2023. 

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