California weed sales are down — but these counties still have sky-high numbers

By Julie Zhu

July 14, 2025

After a billowing rise during the pandemic, legal cannabis sales in California have been in steady decline since the summer of 2021 thanks to high-as-a-kite taxes for consumers and retailers, the decline of wholesale cannabis prices, oversupply from big operators in the state, changing consumer preferences and competition with the illicit market. 

Data from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration shows that the state’s legal cannabis market experienced a sharp rise in taxable sales during the first two years of the pandemic, growing more than 160% from the spring of 2020 to a peak of $1.57 billion in the summer of 2021. However, since that high, sales have declined 30%.

After a spike during the pandemic, California cannabis sales have fallen

Total taxable cannabis sales in California in each quarter

The charts shows total cannabis taxable sales in California in each quarter from 2020 to the first quarter of 2025.

Pandemic emergency declared in CA

Taxable Sales

Includes counties with over 20 quarters of data between 2019 Q1 and 2025 Q1 and taxable sales reported to counties.

Chart: Julie Zhu/S.F. Chronicle•Source: California Department of Tax and Fee Administration

Those data come with caveats, and include all transactions made by legal cannabis retailers, including the sale of merchandise and paraphernalia as well as cannabis itself. Still, it’s clear the industry isn’t performing as well as lawmakers expected. 

Flying high, bumming out

The initial spike happened in 2018, in the aftermath of the state’s legalization of recreational cannabis, said Duncan Ley, the head of the San Francisco Cannabis Retailers Alliance and owner of the California Street Cannabis Company. The increase in legal weed found ready markets with the stress and uncertainty people were dealing with during the pandemic. 

But after that first surge, a myriad of causes may be contributing to the cooling in sales. Dr. Amanda Reiman, a cannabis industry researcher and advocate, said that a chunk of California’s cannabis sales came from visitors from other states. Since then, recreational cannabis has become legal in nearly half of U.S. states.

It’s also possible that enthusiasm died down and tastes settled.

“People were curious and some of them may have never tried cannabis before, and they wanted to try a lot of products,” said Reiman. “Over time, they settle into [their] purchasing habits.” (Even now, it’s clear that sales go up in Q2, which coincides with “4/20,” and in Q4, which coincides with the holidays).

Paradoxically, some of the sales decline could also be because of a supply glut. Ley said that as major operators in the industry have become established, they’ve driven prices down. These larger operators can afford to take losses in retail while pushing gains into distribution and cultivation, where they pay no tax.

Meanwhile, some smaller retailers have found it hard to make a profit at such low prices and have been forced into the illicit market. 

Where the grass is greener

Overall, the decline in cannabis sales is driven mainly by big urban counties like San Francisco, Santa Clara and Los Angeles, where market saturation, high prices and competition from illicit sellers have dragged down sales. But some places have still seen growth.

Counties that started late or were slow to roll out legal cannabis sales, like Contra Costa, are still well above the 2020 baseline. The same is true for counties that neighbor “cannabis deserts” that still ban or limit cannabis businesses, Reiman said.

Percentage change in legal cannabis sales for selected counties

Compared to the first quarter of 2020

The chart shows the percentage change of taxable cannabis sales in six counties in California over the past five years.

El

Dorado

Mendocino

San

Bernardino

San

Francisco

Humboldt

Chart: Julie Zhu/S.F. Chronicle•Source: California Department of Tax and Fee Administration

Late starts characterize some of the state’s historically conservative, more anti-cannabis counties, like San Bernardino, which saw a nearly 115% increase in legal sales over the past five years. Some of these places have even become relatively easier to do business in, granting more permits than traditional cultivation areas like the “Emerald Triangle” counties of Mendocino and Humboldt, where sales have stagnated after a pandemic-era spike. (Sales in Mendocino County have seen the second-biggest net statewide decline, after San Francisco.)

As the pandemic-era spike subsides and legal sales proliferate across the state, the highest per capita sales are no longer in vanguard counties like San Francisco and Humboldt. Instead, several counties in the Sierra Nevada and along the coast more broadly have the highest sales per resident.

That’s true even of relatively conservative places like El Dorado and Calaveras Counties, where “the legalization process … itself gives [cannabis] more credibility,” said Ley. The wider availability of vapes and edibles may also appeal to demographics who would have never smoked cannabis.

Per capita cannabis sales by California county in 2024

Includes counties with sales data for all four quarters

The table shows 2024 California counties' taxable cannabis sales per capita.

				Table with 4 columns and 43 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 15. (column headers with buttons are sortable)
	County	Total taxable sales	Population, 2025	Sales per capita, 2024
	Mono	$4.4M	12.7K	$344
	Inyo	$5.7M	18.8K	$303
	El Dorado	$46.3M	190.8K	$243
	Humboldt	$32.3M	133.8K	$241
	Calaveras	$10.6M	44.7K	$237
	Santa Cruz	$61.2M	263.7K	$232
	Sonoma	$109.8M	482.8K	$227
	San Francisco	$190.9M	842K	$227
	San Luis Obispo	$61.6M	279.3K	$220
	Nevada	$21M	100.4K	$210
	Stanislaus	$116.2M	555.8K	$209
	Del Norte	$5.5M	26.5K	$208
	Mendocino	$17.4M	89.8K	$194
	Shasta	$34M	180.2K	$189
	Tuolumne	$9.5M	54.4K	$176

Includes taxable sales reported to counties.

Table: Julie Zhu/S.F. Chronicle•Source: California Department of Tax and Fee Administration; California Department of Finance

California’s cannabis excise tax rose from 15% to 19% on July 1 last week, bringing further headwinds to both consumers and producers. Ley believes it will  put more legal operators out of the business.

“Cannabis is the only business in the state that has a two excise penalty: on delayed excise tax reimbursement and sales tax,” said Ley, “so the huge tax burden  coupled with an increased excise tax will destroy a lot of businesses and job opportunities.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed willingness to sign a proposal halting the tax increase if it reached his desk, according to a statement from a Newsom spokesperson. 

“The administration is committed to trying to keep costs as low as we can,” said Clint Kellum, deputy director of the California Department of Cannabis Control.