Arkansas medical marijuana sales in the first five months of 2025 totaled $121.024 million, up 6.3% compared with the same period in 2024. Overall pounds sold in the first five months was 32,474, above the 30,000 in the same period of 2024.

Medical marijuana sales totaled $275.9 million in 2024, just below the record of $283 million in 2023.

“Tax revenue from medical marijuana is averaging $2.68 million a month in 2025, also an increase over last year,” Scott Hardin, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA), said in a statement. “With daily medical marijuana sales averaging $806,000, we are on track to surpass the 2023 sales record of $283 million.”

Following are the top five dispensaries, among the state’s 37 licensed dispensaries, for pounds sold in May.
Suite 443 (Hot Springs): 692.98 pounds
Natural Relief (Sherwood): 626.54
Harvest (Conway): 422.78
CROP (Jonesboro): 401.24
Custom Cannabis (Alexander): 363.13

The Arkansas Department of Health reported 109,854 active patient cards, up 12.8% compared with the 97,374 to begin 2024.

Following are the annual sales since 2019 when medical marijuana sales began in Arkansas.
2024: $275.9 million
2023: $283 million
2022: $276.3 million
2021: $264.9 million
2020: $181.8 million
2019: $31.32 million

The constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana for 17 qualifying conditions and creating a state medical marijuana commission was approved by Arkansas voters 53% to 47% in November 2016.

Taxes collected are 6.5% of regular state sales tax with each purchase by a patient and a 4% privilege tax on sales from cultivators to dispensaries. Most of the tax revenue is placed in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences National Cancer Designation Trust Fund. The state also collects a cultivator privilege tax, which means tax revenue is not always tied to how much product is bought by consumers at dispensaries and the price for the product sold to dispensary customers.

Related

The national journalism nonprofit Report for America announced the winners of its fifth annual Local News Awards last week, and our very own agriculture and environment reporter Phillip Powell came away with not one but two honors.

RFA is a national service program that aims to address the decline of local journalism by placing reporters into local newsrooms and covering a portion of their salary. Powell, a 2025 RFA corps member and Arkansas native, came to the Arkansas Times last summer as part of RFA’s collaboration with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. Since then, he’s covered Arkansas ag and enviro issues large and small, from the impact of tariffs on Arkansas soybean farmers to a local fight over an air-fouling waste lagoon near Fort Smith.

RFA’s honors outstanding reporting produced by the group’s corps members over the past year with its Local News Awards. Powell took the silver medal in the “News” category for a story on the Arkansas Legislature’s efforts this spring to restrict the growth of wind power in the state, titled “Breaking wind: Proposal would split Arkansas in two for wind energy regulations.” (The specific bill described in this story did not pass, but in the final days of the legislative session, the Republican majority ultimately did enact stringent new rules that wind advocates say could strangle the nascent industry in Arkansas.)

Powell also took home a third-place prize in the “Enterprise/Investigative” category, shared with fellow RFA corps member Lucas Dufalla of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dufalla and Powell co-reported a story titled “Delta duck hunting offers conservation solutions, but the ducks are disappearing,” which appeared both in the Dem-Gaz and the Arkansas Times in April. A part of a Mississippi Ag & Water Desk series on wetlands, it details the destruction of duck habitat in the Arkansas Delta and the uphill battle faced by conservationists.

According to RFA, the group’s 2025 Local News Award winners were selected from more than 200 pieces of reporting produced by 102 reporters around the country. “Reporting spanned homelessness, mental health, climate change, racial equity, rural shifts, environmental justice, and political extremism, in communities from Albany to Appalachia, Concord to Cedar Rapids, and Birmingham to San Francisco,” RFA said — which makes Powell’s collection of two awards this year all the more notable. Congratulations, Phillip! 

And while we’re on the subject: If you’re as impressed with Powell’s reporting as we are, consider supporting his work. RFA helps small newsrooms like the Arkansas Times hire reporters like Powell, but the nonprofit covers only a portion of the salary. The rest comes from other sources, including local donors. You can contribute here.