Colorado cannabis sales exceeded $2.22 billion in 2021, marking a new high for the state’s steadily maturing cannabis market. The public’s share of the pie also increased, with the state collecting more than $423 million in tax and fee revenue. And that doesn’t include the tens of millions of dollars in local cannabis tax and fee revenue collected by municipal governments across Colorado.

The Denver Post reports:

“We’ve hit a record each year since sales began,” said Shannon Gray, marijuana communications specialist at the department’s Marijuana Enforcement Division. Thursday’s announcement “isn’t really out of the ordinary, but more notable that we continue year after year to see an increase.”

In total, Colorado has sold a whopping amount of weed over the past eight years: more than $12 billion. The data spawns from the state’s marijuana sales reports, which track monthly sales made by both medical and retail marijuana stores by county.

One of Colorado Leads board members, Adam Goers of Columbia Care, pointed out that the industry’s economic benefits go well beyond the tax dollars it generates.

Adam Goers, Columbia Care’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, sees the 2021 marijuana sales surge as more than taxes for the state government — it offers jobs for Coloradans.

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“Those are head-of-household jobs,” he said in a phone interview. “These are great places to work.”