Politics
Massachusetts Hits $10 Billion In Recreational Marijuana Sales As Vote On Ballot Measure To Roll Back Legalization Approaches
Massachusetts has reached a key marijuana milestone, with officials announcing that the state has surpassed $10 billion in adult-use cannabis purchases since the market launched in 2018.
The new data from the state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), shared with Marijuana Moment ahead of its official release on Wednesday, comes just weeks ahead of voters’ decision on a ballot measure that would roll back the state’s recreational marijuana legalization law.
If approved, the initiative would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system.
A poll released last month found that Massachusetts voters oppose the marijuana legalization repeal measure, 55 percent to 33 percent.
CCC Chair Chris Harding told Marijuana Moment that he can’t comment directly on the initiative and that the commission does not take positions on pending ballot questions or legislation, but he said that, in general, “repeal of the adult-use industry could eliminate thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and billions in tax revenue.”
“The commission has worked very hard since the first commissioners were appointed in September 2017 to make sure consumers can buy safe, tested products in a marketplace that prioritizes equity as a founding principle,” Harding said. If the legal market were to disappear, “cannabis could recede back into the shadows with no health and safety protections,” the chair said.
The state officially crossed the $10 billion mark for recreational marijuana sales on September 5, CCC said. June alone saw $156 million in sales—the highest total in any single month since legalization.
The state’s medical cannabis dispensaries have sold an additional $1.64 billion since sales began in 2015—including $96 million so far this year.
“The Massachusetts adult-use cannabis industry has reached $10 billion in gross sales just under eight years after the first retail stores opened in 2018,” Harding told Marijuana Moment. “That’s a remarkable milestone for an industry that’s only as old as the last Red Sox World Series championship. It also shows how much trust our licensees have built over the last eight years, and we congratulate them for that.”
“In practical terms, that revenue keeps 782 active cannabis businesses operating with some 20,000 registered agents performing jobs from bud tending to food science and delivery driving,” he said. “That’s a serious economic engine. And each transaction supports vital services in Massachusetts.”
Cannabis sales, local and excise taxes generated approximately $336 million in fiscal year 2026, according to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
This fall, CCC is planning to launch a social media campaign to highlight how the industry has grown since voters approved a recreational marijuana legalization initiative on the 2016 ballot.
That will include highlighting data such as:
- Almost 20,000 registered agents in the adult-use industry as of August, encompassing 15,000 individual employees
- 782 operating businesses, including more than 100 equity-owned/operated businesses and 91 medical cannabis dispensaries
- $2 billion in state and local taxes generated since 2016 supporting substance abuse recovery, police training, the Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund, restorative justice programs and more
- More than $43 million in local option taxes to cities and towns in fiscal year 2026 alone
- Nearly $60 million in financial assistance to equity licenses since 2024 funded by cannabis tax revenue through the Social Equity Trust Fund
- The Commission’s Social Equity Program has accepted nearly 1,300 participants, providing technical assistance training for entry into the industry for people disproportionately harmed by cannabis prohibition
“As regulators, part of our job is to be accountable to our constituents: consumers, licensees, and residents of Massachusetts, and we want to continue that work,” Harding said. “The industry is still young, and we’re focused on strengthening it as it matures.”
The new $10 billion threshold was crossed just about seven months after CCC reported that Massachusetts adult-use marijuana sales had cleared the $9 billion mark.
In April, Gov. Maura Healey (D) signed a bill to double the legal marijuana possession limit for adults and revise the regulatory framework for the state’s adult-use cannabis market.
In December, state regulators also finalized rules for marijuana social consumption lounges.
Meanwhile, although the latest survey results on the legalization rollback measure provide some comfort to cannabis reform supporters, advocates are not resting.
A coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat the measure.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) recently issued a warning that passage of the legalization rollback measure would have “disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere.”
“Even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat,” the group said.
After the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office determined that organizers for the anti-cannabis proposal had turned in enough valid signatures to put the measure before voters, a marijuana reform advocate filed an objection with the State Ballot Law Commission claiming that various signatures were not genuine, obtained through fraudulent means or were not “signed substantially as registered.”
The body rejected the challenge to the legal marijuana rollback measure, however, clearing it to go before voters to decide.
In June, the campaign behind the anti-legalization ballot measure fired a signature gatherer it says was shown appearing to engage in “wholly unacceptable” conduct in a recent video.
As Marijuana Moment reported, a man petitioning for the Massachusetts initiative as well as a similar anti-cannabis proposal in Maine was depicted in recent social media posts seeming to argue that voters who support legal marijuana access should sign the petitions in order to advance or protect reform.
The campaign later said it has “zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers.”
“The identified canvasser was immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor, upon being made aware of the alleged conduct,” the group said. “The conduct apparent in the video would be wholly unacceptable and does not reflect how this campaign operates. We demand honesty, transparency and professionalism from everyone associated with our effort.”
A video posted to Reddit of the signature gatherer shows the man collecting signatures outside a retail store in Massachusetts next to a sign that says “keep cannabis legal.”
When confronted by a marijuana reform supporter who recorded the petitioner’s interactions with voters, he appeared to be trying to convince them that it is important to qualify the anti-cannabis measure for the ballot in order to then defeat it.
“This is what we’re fighting against right here. That’s why we vote no,” he said. “If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.”
The person who captured the video pointed out that Massachusetts voters already approved marijuana legalization years ago, and that the only way it could be imminently repealed is if the new ballot measure qualified for the November election. If the initiative did not get enough signatures to go before voters, the state’s laws would remain the same.
“It’s my job,” the petitioner insisted, however. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“It’s a group of rich folks from out of state that want to basically take marijuana to when it was a medical marijuana card,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen.”
The same man also appeared to also be gathering signatures for a separate measure in Maine that would similarly repeal laws allowing regulated adult-use marijuana sales and home cultivation rights for adults while keeping possession legal and adding new testing requirements for medical cannabis.
A staffer for the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), whose affiliated group SAM Action is largely funding the anti-cannabis ballot campaigns in both states, declined to comment about the petitioner’s conduct when reached by Marijuana Moment.
The campaigns have previously been accused of misleading petitioning tactics.
In Massachusetts, some voters reported that the campaign used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on unrelated issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration during the first round of petitioning. Legal cannabis supporters filed an earlier formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge.
The measure also faced a legal challenge from cannabis industry operatives who argued it contains “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and that the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient.” The state Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on the litigation challenging the anti-marijuana initiative but it ultimately ruled against the lawsuit.
