More than six years in, the legal cannabis industry landscape in Massachusetts has had a chance to evolve, and a new industry report examines some of the trendlines.

Published by the Cannabis Control Commission last week, the report shows an evolution that has been marked by plummeting prices and rising product potency, a network of retail stores that more densely dot the map in some part of the state than others, incomplete efforts around ensuring the legal cannabis world is a diverse one, and a sales volume that is slowing way down as other states legalize and the novelty wears off.

The report, which was due to be filed in 2023 but was only presented to CCC members last week, is intended to let lawmakers “see and understand what’s happening throughout the industry,” Commissioner Nurys Camargo said. Last fall, the Legislature’s Cannabis Policy Committee held hearings to consider legislative action in response to a litany of complaints and headline-grabbing internal conflicts at the CCC. House chair Rep. Daniel Donahue has said he “foresees a legislative path forward.”

The report also serves as a baseline of sorts, coming just before new Executive Director Travis Ahern began his tenure leading the CCC this week. Commissioners who hired Ahern, a former town administrator of Holliston, said they hoped his leadership would bring a measure of stability to a commission that has been on a bumpy ride the last two years.

Here are five takeaways from the CCC’s ”Review and Assessment of the Massachusetts Adult- and Medical-use Cannabis Industries” report, which was presented to commissioners by Chief of Research Julie Johnson:

Non-medical marijuana sales growth has slowed

Marijuana sales from Nov. 20, 2018 (the start of legal sales) through April 30, 2024 (the endpoint for the report’s data) totaled just more than $6.06 billion. The CCC said sales hit the $7 billion mark on Nov. 19, 2024.

While sales saw big year-over-year increases early on as legal cannabis became more accessible across the state, Johnson said the pace of growth “has generally slowed over time.” Sales increased 347% from 2018 to 2019, 62% from 2019 to 2020, 90% from 2020 to 2021, and then just 12% from 2021 to 2022, 5% between 2022 and 2023, and 7% between 2023 and 2024.

On the medical side of the industry, sales totaled $1.268 billion here between Nov. 5, 2018 and April 30, 2024, according to the report. Medical sales have been declining year over year since 2021 as non-medical options have proliferated and diminished some benefits of becoming registered as a medical patient.

The diversity mandate of the legal cannabis industry remains a work in progress

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Looking at more than 20,000 employee registrations, the CCC took a snapshot of the racial diversity of the legal cannabis industry. Nearly 70% identified themselves primarily as “white,” followed by 11.36% who selected the “decline to answer” option, 8.77% who identified themselves primarily as “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish,” 6.62% who identified primarily as “Black or African American,” and 1.95% who identified themselves as “Asian.”

Census data is collected differently, but figures from 2023 showed that the Massachusetts population was 69.6% white, 9.5% Black or African-American, and 7.7% Asian, with 13.1% of identifying as Hispanic or Latino across all races.

Johnson’s report also broke down the diversity of the cannabis industry here between “senior-level” roles (board member, director, executive and manager) and “general” employees. The senior level positions accounted for 16.6% of the total.

Of those top-tier positions, 77.4% were held by white individuals, 5.3% by Black or African-American individuals, 4.7% by people who identified as Asian, and 4.4% by people who identified primarily as Hispanic, the report found. The “general” employee population was 68.3% people who identify as white, 9.64% people identified as primarily Hispanic or Latino, 6.9% identified as primarily Black or African American, and 1.4% identified as primarily Asian.

“So these percentages change from 2019 to 2023, with the percentage of agent registrations identified as white typically decreasing for both groups, and the percentage identified as Asian, Black or Hispanic/Latino generally increasing for each of these cohorts. These trends were more consistent among general employment and general employee registrations than among senior registrations, which may partly be explained by the much larger number of general employee registrations that we have,” Johnson explained to commissioners last week. “Similarly, the percentage of agent registrations identified as men decreased from 2019 to 2023 across both general employees and senior level agents.”

The price of pot has plummeted since legal sales began in late 2018

The price per gram of non-medical cannabis, calculated as a monthly average by the CCC, has come crashing from from $14.09 when legal sales started in November 2018 to $5.36 in April 2024 — a 62% decrease. The price of an ounce of marijuana has also fallen 62% over the same time period, from $401.50 in 2018 to $153.73 in 2024, the report said.

“Some decreases are expected as the market saturates all across the commonwealth,” Johnson said. “As the price of cannabis decreases, additional adult-use cannabis consumers in Massachusetts may end up entering the market, such as light cannabis users. However, as more East Coast states implement adult-use cannabis legalization, Massachusetts may expect decreases in overall purchases as out-of-state consumers may no longer need to cross borders to purchase cannabis from Massachusetts specifically.”

No single product category accounts for a majority of sales

Regular old cannabis flower remains the most popular of the products for sale in Massachusetts, with buds accounting for 42.2% of the total $6.06 billion worth of sales between November 2018 and April 2024. Vape cartridges had an 18.4% share of sales, followed by pre-rolled joints at 15%, infused edibles and beverages at 14.7% and concentrates at 7.6%.

Cannabis products have become more potent in the last few years

Data from required laboratory test reports show that there has been an upward trend in the potency of legal cannabis products when measuring both THC and THCa, a non-psychotropic cannabinoid that converts into the high-giving THC when heated.

The earliest data on THCa test results in the CCC’s latest report are from April 2021, when the products tested had a median THCa potency of 20.2%. The median climbed to 22.2% for products tested in 2022, and to 24.1% as of December 2023, according to the report. The maximum reported THCa levels have also been on the rise, from 53.1% in 2021, to 73.9% in 2022, to 82.5% in 2023.

Raw marijuana plant material tends to be very low in THC; once the product manufacturer or user heats it, a different and non-psychotropic cannabinoid THCa converts into the psychotropic THC version. But even among test results for raw plant matter, the CCC said it has seen an upward trend from a median of 0.4% in April 2021 to a median of 0.6% in December 2023.

The CCC said there are several potential explanations for unexpectedly high THC test results, but that “establishing a cause requires more in-depth analysis, including multiple stakeholder collaboration and specific content and methodological expertise.”