New Mexico Cannabis Facts

Updated on April 25, 2018.  Medical content reviewed by Dr. Joseph Rosado, MD, M.B.A, Chief Medical Officer

The state of New Mexico legalized medical marijuana in 2007 after then-governor Bill Richardson signed into law the “Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act.” As a matter of fact, the medical cannabis act was named in honor of Lynn Pierson and Erin Armstrong, two cancer patients who were passionate medical marijuana advocates.

The New Mexico Department of Health began sending out medical marijuana cards in July of 2007 and the statistics show that the program has experienced tremendous growth since.

New Mexico Medical Marijuana Facts

• As of October 2016, there were 32,840 active medical marijuana patients in New Mexico. A total of 5495 have enrolled in the program since its inception.
• Marijuana data shows that enrollment was slow until April of 2009 when the amount of new monthly patients began growing exponentially up to a peak of over 400 new registrations in October 2010.
• The medical marijuana law allows patients or their registered caregivers to possess up to 6 ounces of usable cannabis. The state also tightly regulates the number of dispensaries allowed to operate, to date only 25 such nonprofit production centers have been licensed.
• There are a total of 21 qualifying medical conditions, substantially more than in many other states. A curious medical marijuana fact for New Mexico is that, at 15,092 patients, the most reported condition is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as of October 2016. Chronic Pain comes in second with 10,301 reports and Cancer rounded out the top three at 2,725 patients.
• There are 6,305 New Mexico patients authorized to grow their own marijuana as of October 2016.
• Patients are concentrated in Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties.
• Gross sales of medical marijuana in New Mexico totaled approximately $50 million in 2016, compared to approximately $31 million the previous year.
• In 2017, the New Mexico Senate voted to add several more medical conditions to the list of those that were covered by the medical marijuana program. The measure would also allow people visiting New Mexico from other states that have medical marijuana programs to purchase cannabis.
• It would also increase the number of plants each grower could produce once there were at least 35,000 registered patients. As of October 2016, there were nearly 33,000 patients in the program. The number of plants would increase from the cap of 450 that was in place as of February 2017.
• In order to grow medicinal cannabis in New Mexico, residents must be granted a Personal Production License. The application must include information on where plants will be grown and how they will be kept secure.

If you would like more information on medical marijuana facts for New Mexico as well as other areas of the United States, check with MarijuanaDoctors.com regularly. We will update our site as developments warrant.

New Mexico Medical Marijuana Sales Data

• • There were 35 businesses granted licenses to produce medical cannabis during the 2016/2017 fiscal year. They paid a total of approximately $2.7 million to produce 13,800 plants.
  • Out of 4300 ounces of medical marijuana produced, 3720 ounces were sold.
  • Each cannabis plant used by the licensed producers yielded an average of 3.57 ounces.
  • The average price as of November 2016 was $12.35 per gram. There was a total of 11,139 plants in production.
  • Gross sales of medical marijuana in New Mexico totaled $1,224,235 during this time period and $80,887 in taxes was collected.

New Mexico Marijuana Statistics and Facts: Qualifying Conditions

New Mexico Marijuana Statistics and Facts: Distribution Data