TOLEDO – Recreational marijuana sales began in Ohio almost two months ago; now, 13 Action News is getting a better idea of how the industry is shaping up locally and how sales here are impacting Michigan’s marijuana market.
“We’re five-to-10 times busier here depending on the day,” Zach Gergich, a dispensary representative at Nectar, told 13 Action News. Nectar, which is located in Bowling Green, had previously sold only medical marijuana until recreational sales opened on Aug. 6. “We’ve been crushing it up here.”
While Gergich said his team is “crushing it,” latest sales numbers show by and large Ohio dispensaries aren’t crushing their competitors on the other side of the state line.
In August total recreational marijuana sales in Michigan increased, according to the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency; that’s despite sales starting in Ohio that same month.
Even when the numbers are broken down by region, Michigan sales grew. The East and Southeast Region, which is right on the Ohio border, increased from approximately $120 million in July to approximately $122 million in August.
In Ohio, where the market is still in its infancy, sales grew as well. According to Ohio’s Division of Cannabis Control, more than $44 million dollars of marijuana was sold in August; in just the first few weeks of September, as of the 14th, sales jumped to more than $65 million.
While there seems to be plenty of marijuana money to go around now, Gergich said that might not last.
“I think it’s only going to get more competitive. We’ll see, you know, more licenses pop up for growers and processors and stuff like that,” he said, “So obviously more there, more of them, you know, prices should start we hopefully should see them fall a little bit and kind of get more competitive in that range.”
This story was reported by ABC13 in Toledo.
