New Jersey Cannabis Hit $1.16 Billion in 2025. In 2026 It's Flat, and Medical Is Down to $46 Million.

New Jersey sold $1.164 billion of cannabis in 2025, its best year yet. Nine months into 2026, it has sold about $857 million by Headset's count, almost exactly the pace of 2025. The market that grew 45% in 2023 and 35% in 2024 has stopped growing in dollars.

It hasn't stopped growing in product. Stores are moving more units than ever. They're just selling them for less.

Year by year

Adult-use sales began on April 21, 2022. Here are the certified totals since.

The CRC's own press release in March 2024 gave 2023 as $800.3 million. The certified table now shows $805.9 million; the commission notes that figures get updated when funds are collected after a quarter's report. I'm using the certified table.

Adult-use sales tax came to $67.5 million in 2025, plus $11.0 million in Social Equity Excise Fees. Medical is exempt from both.

2025, quarter by quarter

Q4 2025 was the biggest quarter in the program's history. It was also the first time medical came in under $8 million.

2026 so far

The CRC has certified the first half of 2026 at $549.8 million, down 2.1% from the first half of 2025. After June, the picture comes from two places that don't fully agree.

Headset has May at $99.2 million, up 1.5% year over year, and July at $101.2 million, up 0.9%. Headset has August at $100.9 million and September at $95.8 million, bringing the running total through September to about $857 million. The CRC's July 16 meeting, using Metrc point-in-time data, put June adult-use sales at about $115 million. Those two series don't reconcile cleanly, and the CRC says the slide numbers are estimates.

Either way, $857 million through September annualizes to roughly $1.14 billion, and even with a strong fourth quarter the year probably lands between $1.1 and $1.2 billion. Call it flat.

Headset's 12-month view says the same thing: $1.17 billion in New Jersey sales over the 12 months to September, up 1.7%. New York was up 22.1% over the same period.

The price problem

The CRC's May slides show the average adult-use flower price at $6.80 a gram in April 2026, down 23% from April 2025 and down from $8.14 in October 2025. Dank Reports, working from CRC data, puts the drop at 35% over 21 months while grams sold rose 38%.

Headset's July breakdown shows where the money is going. Flower was $42.3 million, about 42% of the market, up 0.7%. Vape pens were $26.8 million, up 1.9%. Edibles fell 11.8% to $10.9 million. The categories that grew were small ones: concentrates up 28.7% to $3.2 million, rosin up 129% to $1.1 million, beverages up 76% to about $510,000. The average item sold for $29.83, more than New York's $28.81 and nearly double California's $17.85.

New Jersey still has some of the highest prices in the country. They're just falling faster than New York's.

More stores, same money

The CRC said more than 315 dispensaries were open across 21 counties as of July 2026, up from "more than 300" in May 2026 and "more than 270" at the end of 2025. Hoodie Analytics counts the store footprint up 22% in a year.

The commission has taken in 3,252 license applications and approved 2,545, so the store count will keep rising. Revenue per store, which Dank Reports put at about $4.3 million, higher than New York's $3.8 million, will come down as it does.

The medical program

This is the part of the market that's actually shrinking, not just stalling.

Medical sales peaked at $226 million in 2022, the year adult-use launched. They fell to $125 million in 2023, $84 million in 2024 and $46 million in 2025. Q4 2025 was $7.6 million. The CRC's May slides show April 2026 medical sales down another 42% year over year.

Patient enrollment was 44,476 as of July 2026. I wrote in September that the program had lost two of every three patients since its peak. The reasons haven't changed: a card costs money and time, adult-use stores sell the same products from the same companies, and the dual-use operators have little reason to keep a separate medical experience alive. Medical cannabis was about 4% of New Jersey sales in 2025 and under 2% in the first half of 2026.

New York next door

The comparison that used to flatter New Jersey now cuts the other way. In 2024, New Jersey did $1.08 billion to New York's $890 million. In 2025, New York did $1.68 billion to New Jersey's $1.16 billion. Through September 2026, New York is at $1.41 billion; New Jersey, by Headset's count, is at about $857 million.

New Jersey still has the cheaper weed and the lower tax, which is why the border stores keep doing well. But the customer who used to drive over from Manhattan or Westchester now has a store closer to home.

What to watch

The CRC's certified first half, $549.8 million, came in close to Headset and well below the Metrc estimates. The fourth quarter will decide whether 2026 edges past 2025 or finishes just under it. Either outcome is a rounding error on $1.16 billion. The number that isn't a rounding error is the price per gram, and that's still heading down.