Sacramento, Calif. — A Colorado analytics company claims California isn't making the amount of money it thought it would from legalizing marijuana but a local dispensary and city officials say not so fast.
BDS Analytics, a company that collects sales data from dispensaries, released a report recently called California: The Golden Opportunity?
The report analyzes the market for marijuana in California and goes over the various regulations in place.
Vice President of Operations for BDS Analytics, Greg Schoenfeld said in January and February, Californians bought roughly $339 million worth of marijuana products. While that's a lot of money, it's 13 percent less than state projections.
"When you look at stores operational before January 2018 and that were licensed before January 1, those stores have seen their sales increase but we’ve seen an overall decrease in the market," Schoenfeld said.
He attributed the decrease to a decline in a "large number of operators in the first three months of 2018" as some dispensaries were not able to become licensed in time.
"That lack of access really brought down the sales from the prior months," Schoenfeld said.
In Sacramento there are 28 legal dispensaries.
"Last year those dispensaries generated $4.8 million in general tax revenue. We've been cautious with our revenue projections as cultivation and manufacturing comes online. It's difficult to quantify because we don't know," said Joe Devlin, the Chief of Cannibas Policy Enforcement for the City of Sacramento.
Devlin is waiting for the state to release it's first quarter tax revenue statements which will show how much money the state is making in the marijuana industry since January 1.
"We need more time we need more time to get an accurate assessment of tax dollars are going to look like and then it's going to continue and changes as the market matures," Devlin said.
Even local dispensaries believe time will tell how much California will profit off of legal marijuana.
"I think the expectations are hard to meet for the state of California. It's hard to predict what your 15 percent excise tax for the whole state will be when you are implementing a system that's never been seen before," said Matt Z'Berg with Magnolia Wellness Group who represents Hugs Alternative Care and River City Phoenix.
Between their two stores, Z'Berg said they've paid close to $200,000 in required excise tax to the state.
Z'Berg believes the data may not include every dispensary in the state.
"Who knows what’s going on through out the whole state in the brick and mortar whether or not they are able to deliver their 15 percent excise tax payments to the state," Z'Berg said.
The state plans to release it's first quarter tax statements in the next several weeks. Those figures will show if it's making it's projections or not.