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March biggest month ever for recreational marijuana sales in Colorado

March was the highest month for recreational marijuana sales to date.
Credit: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Experts say starting marijuana from clones -- cuttings taken from another plant -- is the best way to start growing cannabis. It helps ensure that the plants are all female, and jumpstarts the growing process.

It pays to be in the pot business.

The Department of Revenue says March was the biggest month for recreational sales to date.

Recreational marijuana hit its peak last month an $106 million. It beat the previous record of $102 million set in August last year.

Data shows sales usually peak during the summer months. But medical marijuana sales hit a slump.

Medicinal sales were highest in August 2016 at almost $42 million. In March, they were only a little more than $29 million.

"A lot of people are choosing to not go through the sort of rigmarole of going to see a doctor and getting a card from the state and are instead just going to their local recreational marijuana store where prices have become somewhat in line with those of medical marijuana," attorney Brian Vicente of Vicente Sederberg LLC who specializes in marijuana law said.

"I do think we're going to continue to see probably a decline in medical sales as people shift over their consumer habits to the recreational side," he said. "They don't have to go and get a doctor's card. They're paying more in tax but prices are becoming lower and it's not as bad on their wallet."

Vicente expects this trend of higher recreational sales to eventually level off.

But right now, those higher sales are good news for the state since recreational marijuana is taxed more than medicinal.

You can see exactly how much marijuana was sold each month since March 2014 in the graph below.

Data from Colorado Department of Revenue.

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