On the five year anniversary of legal recreational cannabis sales in Maine, state regulators say the market is leveling off.
During a webinar on Thursday analyzing retail data, director John Hudak said sales are high, but stable.
"What you're seeing is explosive growth at the outset, which you would expect from a new industry, but you can only sustain explosive growth for so long as the supply begins to catch up with demand," he said.
Data analytics director Eric Miller said York and Cumberland counties combined account for nearly 60% of all retail sales.
"This means that relative to where people live in the state of Maine, we see that there is a disproportionate amount of revenue further south and further west," he said.
He said that's due to both a higher concentration of retail stores in southern and western Maine, and higher per capita sales in those places.
Retail sales peaked at just over $240 million last year, and are on a similar pace this year.
That works out to an average of over $220 per adult Mainer.
Still, Hudak says the industry is not immune from broader economic headwinds. He said cannabis stores in northern Maine, like other businesses there, are suffering from the loss of Canadian tourists.
