According to recent data by Colorado Department of Revenue, Colorado dispensaries accounted for $1.5 billion in medical and social cannabis sales in 2017.

Out of $1.5 billion, adult use cannabis sales amounted to $1 billion in net sales, while medical sales came in at $416.52 million. The state finance data also reported that Colorado collected over $247 million in cannabis sales tax revenue. In December 2017 alone, Colorado’s lucrative cannabis industry revenue hit $128.27 million.

Analysts and economists caution the state that sales might plateau soon. Cannabis sales were up 15.3 percent in 2017 compared to 31 percent in 2016.

“We’re no longer growing at 40 percent and 30 percent,” Paul Seaborn, an assistant professor who taught the first-ever Business of Marijuana course at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, told The Cannabist. “We’re still not quite at the peak and should still see 5 [percent] to 10 percent sales growth.”

Though sales might see a few bumps if towns chose to regulate adult use cannabis, but for the most part sales are expected to level off.

“I think what we’re starting to see is the leveling off of the market after the illicit market is absorbed,” Adam Orens, a founding partner of Marijuana Policy Group LLC, a Denver-based economic and policy consulting firm focused on the cannabis industry, told The Cannabist.

Orens also claims the leveling off is all thanks to the legal market absorbing and replacing almost 90 percent of black market sales.

“And we’re nearing the completion of that absorption,” he told The Cannabist.

As the legal sales replace the illegal cannabis market, Colorado will consequently become a more mature cannabis industry and will grow slower while being dependent upon factors like population growth.

Miles Light, Orens’ colleague at Marijuana Policy Group LLC, takes the projection a little further claiming sales will come to a decline.

“I personally believe that sales will decline in 2018,” he said.

He also claims the declines comes from other states implementing cannabis laws, as well as the decline in cannabis prices.