U.S. Cannabis Market Projected To Rise 7% This Year
March 25, 2025The U.S. cannabis market is expected to reach $44.4 billion by the end of the decade, a nearly $15 billion increase over last year’s sales total of $31.4 billion, according to cannabis analytics firm BDSA. Globally, the group projects that cannabis will be a $54 billion industry by 2029, with the overwhelming majority coming from the U.S. adult-use category along with the slow rise of European and other international medical and adult-use markets. “The leading growth driver will be the U.S. adult-use market,” says BDSA co-founder and CEO Roy Bingham. “It is supported by growth in the international medical and adult-use markets.”
In the shorter term, BDSA projects 7% U.S. growth in 2025, bringing the market total to $33.5 billion, with further gains expected looking ahead. “In 2029, all the growth over this period will come from the adult-use market,” says Bingham. “That’s a compound growth rate of 10%.”
As cannabis in the U.S. has matured, many markets have experienced price compression, with BDSA data showing that prices were down 18% in 2024 compared to 2022. The data also shows that as markets mature, growth becomes more incremental. “One overarching factor is the hemp-derived business that is competing for customer interest,” Bingham said. Of price compression, he added, “the rate of reduction slowed somewhat in 2024” and businesses can “expect limited further price decreases in the mature markets that have now found some kind of equilibrium.”
BDSA projects continued declines for medical sales in the U.S., as some markets add on adult-use. “Adult-use markets continue to transition away from medical and new medical market openings have slowed,” Bingham said. “Medical cannabis has really been driven by growth in the large medical-only markets like Florida and Pennsylvania.” Florida and Pennsylvania each grew by 4% in 2024, versus 12% growth in 2023.
The major constricting factor on growth in adult-use cannabis in the U.S. is a lack of new markets coming online. After seeing five markets launch in 2023—Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—only Ohio kicked off adult-use sales in 2024.
Between now and 2029, BDSA projects that there will be new markets, including Delaware in 2025; Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania in 2026; North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Virginia in 2027; and South Dakota and Wisconsin in 2028.
BDSA’s data comes from licensed dispensaries and does not include the more widely available hemp-derived THC products, except for a small amount sold in dispensary channels in certain markets. In the U.S. the group performs retail sales tracking in 15 adult-use and medical markets, supplementing that information with government data and other trend reports. The Canadian data covers retail sales information from nine markets, plus government data.
The group does not expect federal legalization or meaningful federal reform in the near future, “We are not expecting that national regulations would have an impact that is material before 2029,” said Bingham.—Shane English
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