Colorado’s marijuana sales continued to decline in Q1 this year.
To Toby Ripsom, itap a sign of continued normalization.
“Itap cannabis just being in the mix of every other industry,” said Ripsom, who co-founded the defunct weed wholesaler Veritas Fine Cannabis. He also started edible company Flower Union and runs the cannabis skincare business Galyna.
“Itap coming back to earth and just being the business that it should be,” he said, noting that weed is inching closer to the patterns of nearly every other regulated industry.
According to data released by the Colorado Department of Revenue last week, state dispensaries sold $283 million worth of recreational weed from January through March. Thatap 2.4% lower than the $290 million dealers sold in Q1 of 2025.
Figures for the first three months of a year have declined each year since the boom days of 2021, when a pandemic-induced lockdown brought dispensaries record sales. From 2020 to 2021, Q1 sales increased 29% from $352 million to $453 million, which remains the all-time high.
Since recreational cannabis was first sold in Colorado in 2014, sales grew at a median 38% rate in the industry’s first six years.
“COVID created no on-premises alcohol, cannabis skyrocketed in both consumer prices and license count, and then we had an overbuild of license structure to meet the demand,” Ripsom said.
“We’re still coming down from that and itap clearly not plateaued,” he continued. “And, along with every other consumer good, you have the consumer getting super squeezed.”
A more wary customer base has affected dispensaries disproportionately, Ripsom said, largely because they’re dealing with all-cash, no-credit transactions. In a world where “buy now, pay later” apps like Affirm have exploded, itap hard for cannabis not to fall off the sender’s radar, he added.
“I’m surprised (the numbers) are actually not lower because the consumer is hurting so much,” he said. “The same guy that hasn’t filled up his car at Sinclair in two months isn’t hitting the dispensary at the same frequency. Itap weirdness that has nothing to do with cannabis.”
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