Green Rush or Total Bust? New Mexico's Botanical Boom

New Mexico—beautiful, wild, and sprawling—has exploded into a landscape of 949 licenses reporting activity in November. Throughout 2024, more than 200 of those retailers have called Albuquerque home, a city where green crosses litter portions of the map like confetti. Behind the optimism, a looming storm brews. It’s not all smoke and sunshine. The market might be flooding; the competition brutal. Survival of the fittest has never been more relevant, and the weakest are feeling the squeeze.

The state’s bureaucrats are scratching their heads, trying to figure out just how deep this saturation problem goes. As of August 2024, the latest numbers paint a picture of 759,481 plants in the ground. Some suggest lowing plant counts for large operators, while raising them for micros would stabilize market health. However with much of New Mexico’s market either focused in the largest cities, or scattered throughout rural towns, getting those plants to new dispensaries will continues to be a challenge, especially with border seizures.

Road to Success, But at What Cost?

Take Julieta Neas. She gambled big—sold her house—to fund her shot at the dream. Amnesia Dispensaries reported $322,108 in November, but Neas knows the battlefield she's on. Her words cut through the haze: "It’s very, very competitive... People are putting so much of their money, their livelihood into it." She’s expanded to an additional location in Albuquerque off Jefferson, but the question remains—how long can she keep the wolves at bay? The location has been able to recapture the previous tenants 2023 average earnings, but has yet to surpass them.

Then there’s Oasis, a heavyweight led by Kane Oueis, a man who knows how to play the long game. With their Roswell store alone pulling $333,986 in November 2024, Oasis is thriving. Oueis attributes their success to a decade of grind and hustle: "This reputation did not emerge overnight but is the result of constant evolution." And the evolution continues, with several new locations slated for 2025, the banners “Products per SQFT” approach to offerings will prove a challenge for any market.

The Free Market Grind

Cinder, straight out of Washington, made its attempt in Albuquerque with a single store and manufacturing. Mitch Anderson, Director of Manufacturing, was pragmatic upon arrival: "It drives us forward... but there’s always going to be competition." Cinder was not able to weather the storm, and has since exited. And while new dispensaries pop up with alarming frequency, others also quietly fade away; Seven Point Farms, Sacred Garden, Minerva, Off the Charts, all closed.

The cold reality is in the numbers. Bill Sluben of The Data Heard drops the hard truth: sales growth is flat, while the number of dispensaries just keeps rising. Pat Davis, city councilor and consultant, sums it up bluntly: "There’s not enough money in Albuquerque being spent on CPG products to support all of these stores." The math is simple, the outcome inevitable. Some of these businesses are going down.

Land of Flower and Honey

If you’re near UNM Campus and need groceries, your options are limited: Smith’s, La Montañita, Walgreens, and a handful of gas stations—about six places if you count convenience stores. But if you’re looking for a dispensary, the area boasts at least twelve options, including Mama and the Girls, Lemon Cannabis, Verdes, Oasis, Enchanted Botanicals, Releaf, Herban Oasis, CasaCanna, The Grass Station, Smokin Joes, Nob Hill Dispensary, and R. Greenleaf.

This means residents have twice as many options to buy an eighth, than they do milk and eggs. The question remains: How sustainable is this level of competition, and at what cost to a community where options for essentials are dwarfed by dispensaries.

The Pause That Could Save—Or Sink—The Market

While some advocates such as Ben Lewinger have voiced the idea of a pause to help current license holders gain stability, a pause would also stress ancillary service providers, who often assist new operators with services like consulting, SOP creation, and website management. With fewer new licenses, demand for these high-ticket services could decline, putting pressure on an industry built around supporting all entrepreneurs.

But not everyone’s on board. Duke Rodriguez, the CEO of Ultra Health, doesn’t mince words: "The genie is out of the bottle." No pause is going to fix what’s already been unleashed. And he just might be right, with operators such as Mango Cannabis opening in Sunland Park, 2025 could be the make or break year for several licensees.

And so, the industry in New Mexico marches on—a mix of high hopes, hard realities, and dreams on the line. Some will thrive, others will fold. In the end, it’s the same game it’s always been, be good, or be good at it.

Excerpts from Albuquerque Journals 2023, Matthew Narvaiz, Albuquerque Journal, N.M. November 13, 2023