States that have legalized marijuana have reported to the federal government more than $8.7 billion in cannabis tax revenue since tracking began by the U.S. Census Bureau in mid-2021, according to newly updated figures posted by the agency on Thursday.
Overall, California has reported the biggest share of that revenue, at more than $2 billion in tax income, followed by Washington State ($1.3 billion), Colorado ($898 million) and Michigan ($698 million).
The latest update by the Census Bureau to its cannabis excise sales tax tracker includes data through the second quarter of 2024, although not all states—including Washington, Nevada, Maryland, New Mexico, New Jersey and Arkansas—had yet submitted data for the latest quarter.
Because the numbers are incomplete, Census advises that they “should not be relied upon to estimate the total cannabis sales tax collected for the U.S.”—meaning the $8.7 billion total is likely an undercount of actual taxes taken in.
Among states that did provide numbers for the latest quarter, California collected $156 million in cannabis taxes during that period, followed by Michigan ($75 million), Illinois ($72 million), Colorado ($61 million), Massachusetts ($50 million) and Arizona ($45 million).
Jurisdictions reporting the lowest revenue figures were those where only medical
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