Massachusetts Hits $10 Billion Marijuana Sales Milestone, Top Official Say Consumption Lounges Will Bolster Industry In 2026
Massachusetts reached a marijuana sales milestone in 2025, with $1.65 billion in adult-use sales for the year—bringing the state’s total legal cannabis purchases to over $10 billion since the recreational market launched, officials announced on Thursday.
A top regulator also said that the forthcoming addition of social consumption lounges could give the industry a further boost in 2026, and that President Donald Trump’s directive to federally reschedule cannabis will create more research opportunities in the state.
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) released the latest data on Thursday, while indicating that officials anticipate an even higher sales record this year as the state prepares to launch a new license category or social consumption lounges.
When combining recreational and medical sales for 2025, the state saw about $1.8 billion in legal marijuana purchases for the year. Overall since 2018, there have been about $10.8 billion in combined medical and recreational cannabis sales.
Travis Ahern, executive director of CCC, said that beyond the social consumption lounge expansion, Trump’s order to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) will bring benefits to the state.
“Commissioners and staff are hard at work preparing for a potential expansion of the industry related to social consumption and the prospect of new research opportunities should the federal government reschedule cannabis,” he said. “With critical changes on the horizon, the Commission remains focused on adapting its policies, protocols, and oversight in a way that continues building out a safe, equitable, and effective cannabis industry for Massachusetts.”
Massachusetts marijuana retailers recorded a new annual record of 46.3 million transactions in 2025, CCC said, which is roughly 3.4 million more than in the prior year. In the background, Massachusetts election officials have scheduled a hearing to investigate a complaint challenging the signature gathering process for a proposed ballot initiative to roll back the state’s marijuana legalization law.
That came about two weeks after the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division confirmed that the anti-cannabis campaign collected enough valid signatures to send the measure to lawmakers for consideration ahead of potentially being placed on the November ballot.
As detailed in the recent complaint, the campaign has been marred with controversy over allegedly misleading signature gathering tactics. There have been claims that paid petitioners used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration.
Meanwhile, the head of Massachusetts’s marijuana regulatory agency recently suggested that the measure to effectively recriminalize recreational cannabis sales could imperil tax revenue that’s being used to support substance misuse treatment efforts and other public programs.
