Connecticut’s cannabis conundrum 🤔

CONNECTICUT
What’s the matter with Connecticut

Connecticut’s cannabis conundrum: Two major cannabis firms, Acreage and Ayr Wellness, are leaving the state. Two and a half years after Connecticut’s cannabis market launch, prices and sales are stagnating, while the Nutmeg state continues to struggle with supply.

Connecticut is small enough that one can drive to the state line in about an hour — it’s surrounded by states that also offer recreational cannabis, which Acreage and Ayr Wellness are likely aware of.

What they’re saying: “They are staying in other states around us, so that tells me that they either feel that we're over-regulated or that we just have too many restrictions,” Connecticut Ombudsman Erin Gorman Kirk said on the Connecticut East This Week podcast. 

And also: “If there's nothing to buy, then you're going to another state.”

The market’s rough start: The state’s original four medical suppliers were allowed to convert to adult-use. Since then, only two additional companies have opened full-size cultivation operations that are allowed to exceed 10,000 square feet of canopy.

When the state first planned its cannabis roll out, it required $3 million for a cultivation license, while also requiring that license go to a social equity applicant whose status was partially based on income. 

Few applicants qualified and fewer still have been able to actually open for business. The state has allowed operators who qualified for cultivation licenses to convert to a micro-cultivation license which covered 2,000-10,000 square feet of canopy.

Stagnant numbers: Total sales in Connecticut are stagnant, based on the state’s own data. 

They reached a peak in December of last year with $27.5 million in sales for the month between both recreational and medical. 

Total sales have declined since then: 

• The state saw $25.3 million in total sales for May. 

• During this period recreational sales slowly increased, but they are still being outpaced by the decline in medical sales, which went from $12.6 million in March, 2023 to $6.6 million last month.

Prices in Connecticut have not seen the same drop that other new markets experience, based on state data. The state only tracks the average product price with no corresponding quantity: 

• When the market launched in January 2023, that average was $44.61 for recreational products. 

• By April, the average dropped to $39.58 which is about where the price fluctuated until the fall of 2024, when it started to slightly decline. 

• The average product price in May, 2025 was $35.09 for recreational and $33.73 for medical. 

During that same period medical prices consistently remained just a few dollars below recreational.

Other market forces: In fairness, Ayr Wellness has their own set of problems to contend outside of Connecticut. 

The company is struggling against a wave of impending debt obligations that have left them unable to file their most recently-due financial report. The Ontario Securities Commission issued a cease-trading order to the company as a result.

Final word: “We are a small state. We don't have the ability to really show what we've got, we don't have farmers markets, we don't have billboards. It's difficult to get the word out. You can do a mailing, but you throw those away,” Gorman Kirk said.

“I just feel like we need to do more to show that Connecticut has great stuff.” 

-ZH

Editor’s note: After publication, a spokesperson for Ayr Wellness reached out and said the company is still operational in Connecticut.

“No cellphones. We were abducted from China, passports were confiscated. No escape from the house, only work but no salary. I want to leave here, we tried to escape but failed. We were beaten. Please come and save us.” 

Transcript of a call, published by the Portland Press Herald, from December to the Kennebec County Sheriff's Office from one of the many illegal grow sites in Maine allegedly being operated by Chinese nationals.

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