Recreational cannabis sales in Minnesota top $50 million in last six months since legal market took off
Minnesota's recreational cannabis market is still a budding industry, even though lawmakers legalized marijuana for adult use three years ago. But it's come a long way, and the top regulator says that the state could see a more fully operational, steady market by the end of the year.
Since September — the month when the Office of Cannabis Management issued the first licenses for retailers — sales have exceeded $50 million in total for recreational cannabis, according to state data.
In 2025, sales topped $210 million for both adult-use marijuana and hemp-derived THC products, which have been around much longer. That means $27 million in new state tax revenue, according to numbers provided by the Department of Revenue.
More is likely to come as the legal market continues to ramp up.
Eric Taubel, executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management, said he expects monthly sales to double in the coming months and years. So far, the regulatory agency has issued roughly 180 licenses and most of them are microbusinesses.
"The upside to that is we're going to have a unique market that's oriented towards craft that has an opportunity for small businesses to compete. The challenge is that that kind of intentional building of a market takes a little bit more time," Taubel said in an interview Thursday. "But we're really in the place where I think cannabis consumers have more options, they have product available, and it's only going to get better from here."
Cannabis advocates at the state capitol agree that Minnesota's market, by design, was going to be a slow burn. But there have been some unanticipated hurdles, like not enough testing facilities in-state to clear all cannabis — hemp and adult-use — products for safety as the law requires.
It's why Gov. Tim Walz recently signed a bill lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis, allowing out-of-state testing to continue for hemp-derived THC products — which have been around much longer—to relieve some of the supply chain pressure.
"We didn't want to leave these businesses in a lurch to get in a really long line in the testing field right now, because all of the products would then have to go through in-state testing, cannabis and hemp included by that logic," said Rep. Jess Hanson, DFL-Burnsville. "So we wanted to make sure we extended that out as much as we could."
Hanson, who's worked on cannabis issues for years, said she hears the concerns about not having enough supply to stock dispensary shelves. But she isn't too worried about where things stand since there are other ways to access cannabis: through the low-dose hemp market, growing plants at home and by visiting tribal dispensaries.
"There's a lot of failure in this industry, and it's not by fault of any entity or one person or group or anything like that. It is a matter of a lot of folks learning how to take something in from the dark market into the light market and figure out how to blend that together," she said.
Taubel believes some of the supply problems have eased as early cultivator licensees' initial plants have fully grown and are cultivated. More businesses have flower and adult-use products and more consistently now than a few months ago, he said.
"I think that would definitely continue to increase," he said of the supply. "We've also now added some additional tribal partners with the most recent round of compacts, so we think that product will start to make its way into stores too."