The State of Legal Weed, Part 2: What Changed in October

Data sourced from state cannabis regulators' public filings and reports. Where a number comes from news coverage of a regulator's report rather than the report itself, I say so. This is a follow-up to The State of Legal Weed: America's Adult-Use Market, State by State and Legal to Hold, Illegal to Sell: Virginia and D.C.'s Missing Rec Markets.

A month ago I went state by state through America's legal weed market, and then took a closer look at the two places where you can legally hold it but can't legally buy it: Virginia and D.C.

The big picture hasn't moved. It's still 24 states plus D.C. where adults can possess cannabis, and 23 states with stores open. Nobody new legalized and nobody new started selling in the last month.

But a lot happened underneath that. New York is having its best year yet, Massachusetts is days away from voting on whether to shut its stores, the federal government hit pause on rescheduling, and D.C.'s medical program kept growing.

New York keeps climbing

When I wrote the first piece, the most recent number I had for New York was about $895 million in sales for the first half of 2026. The Office of Cannabis Management has now put out its third-quarter numbers: $512.6 million in July, August and September, which brings the year to $1.41 billion so far. For comparison, the state did $1.482 billion in adult-use sales from January through November of last year. With a full quarter still to go, 2026 is going to blow past that.

Since the first legal store opened in December 2022, New York has sold more than $4.1 billion. The governor's office says 744 adult-use dispensaries are open, out of 1,039 licensed retailers.

The rest of the numbers

Ohio keeps adding customers. The Division of Cannabis Control has logged 29.6 million adult-use receipts since sales started in August 2024, up from 27.7 million when I last checked. Its count of active medical patients actually ticked up too, from 72,943 at the end of July to 73,396 at the end of September.

New Jersey went the other way. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission counted 42,191 medical patients on October 15, down from 42,984 a month earlier. That's almost 800 patients gone in a month.

Arizona is doing the same thing. Its health department counted 70,444 active patients in July and 69,144 in August, so about 1,300 patients dropped off in one month.

Michigan cooled off a little. August was $258.8 million in adult-use sales. September came in around $242.3 million, according to reporting on the Cannabis Regulatory Agency's numbers, with the average ounce now going for under $60.

Massachusetts passed $10 billion in all-time adult-use sales on September 5. Hold onto that number for the next section.

Massachusetts votes on November 3

Question 8 would end retail adult-use sales in Massachusetts and recriminalize home grow. You could still possess cannabis, and the medical program would stay open, but the stores would close.

Right now it's losing badly. A UMass Amherst/WCVB poll taken October 5 through 12 had it at 61% no and 31% yes. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll a week later had it at 71% no and only 21% yes. Gov. Maura Healey, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and more than 50 state lawmakers, including the House speaker and the Senate president, have all said they're voting no. According to MJBizDaily, nearly all of the roughly $3.5 million behind the yes side has come from SAM Action, the political arm of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

It's the only cannabis question on a statewide ballot this year besides Idaho's. There, HJR 4 would amend the state constitution so that only the legislature could legalize marijuana, which would take the question away from voters. Florida's legalization amendment didn't make the ballot after the state found it short on signatures. A repeal effort in Arizona was called off, and one in Maine came up short.

Washington hit pause

Back in April, a federal order moved medical marijuana to Schedule III. The DEA hearing on rescheduling the rest of marijuana was supposed to come next. It's now on hold. A new GAO report questioned how the DEA and FDA handle scheduling, and the judge running the hearing put everything on pause while both sides file briefs on it. On October 22 he turned down a request from opponents to reopen the hearing, but the briefs aren't due until October 29, with replies due November 5. Don't expect a decision before the election. (For what the pause did to cannabis stocks, see The DEA Hit Pause and Cannabis Stocks Lost a Fifth.)

The bigger near-term deal is hemp. The federal ban on hemp-derived THC products was supposed to start November 12. Congress pushed it back to December 11 in the stopgap funding bill. Products with synthetic cannabinoids still face the November 12 date. If you run a licensed store, this one matters to you, because a lot of what's sitting in smoke shops and gas stations right now is competing directly with you.

Pennsylvania is still talking. State Senate Democrats held a policy hearing on adult-use in Philadelphia on September 25, but it wasn't a voting committee, and nothing has moved since. Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman has said he sees little chance of legalization this year, and that he'd rather wait for Washington.

Virginia has a schedule

The Cannabis Control Authority has now laid out the steps between here and July 1, 2027:

• October 2026: the Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council starts reviewing the draft retail rules
• December 2026: the rules are finalized
• January 2027: the rules are published and take effect
• By February 1, 2027: license applications open
• By May 1, 2027: the first licenses are issued
• July 1, 2027: retail sales begin

Starting November 1, the state Attorney General can also go to court against stores selling illegal high-THC hemp.

D.C.'s medical program keeps growing

D.C.'s September numbers, as reported by Outlaw Report from the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration's monthly report, show 149,199 registered medical patients. That's up from 136,882 in July. In a city of 693,645 people, it works out to about 215 patients for every 1,000 residents, or more than one in five. The city now has 67 licensed retailers, up from 65. Dispensaries sold about $6.36 million in September, and the whole program did $10.25 million counting cultivators and manufacturers.

Nothing has changed on the retail side. Congress is still funding the government on a stopgap that runs through December 11, and I haven't seen any sign that the rider blocking D.C. from opening adult-use stores is going away.

What I'm watching

The bottom line

A month didn't change the map, but it sharpened a few things. New York is finally acting like the market everyone said it would be. Medical programs in states with rec keep shrinking, while D.C., where you can't buy rec, keeps signing up patients. And the two biggest threats on the calendar aren't new states or federal rescheduling. They're a repeal vote in Massachusetts and a federal hemp ban that's been pushed back exactly once.

I'll be back after November 3 with the Massachusetts result.