The vast majority of registered patients – more than 65,000 – obtained cards to treat chronic pain.
Utah’s still-growing medical marijuana market just got a big boost, with registered patient counts up 19% year-over-year at the end of March, to a new total of 83,000.
The relatively new market – which launched in March 2020, right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic – has just 15 dispensaries for the entire state, but sales were $138 million last year, KSL News Radio reported.
The vast majority of registered patients – more than 65,000 – obtained cards to treat chronic pain, the Utah Department of Health & Human Services said in its March report. The second most common ailment for medical cannabis patients was post-traumatic stress disorder, with almost 18,000 patients.
The report also found that sales continue to climb, with March sales reaching about $13 million. Total market sales all-time are coming up on $400 million, the agency reported.
Another report from the state Department of Agriculture, however, found earlier this month that two-thirds of registered patients don’t purchase regularly from the legal market. Instead they prefer to buy from either the underground market or recreational shops in Colorado or Nevada.
That led a spokesman for the Agriculture Department to conclude that “additional efforts are needed to bring more Utahns into the medical cannabis program.”
