At a glance
Delaware publishes no monthly cannabis figures of its own. Everything on this page comes from a commercial vendor's page that the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links, and it is labelled as such wherever it appears. Read the notice above these tiles before reading the tiles.
Where the market is heading
This line is adult-use plus medical: the two channel columns the vendor publishes, summed here rather than taken from any roll-up. The Wholesale column in the same table is a licensee-to-licensee figure and is never added to it — the section below shows why that is a measurement rather than an assumption.
Retail sales, by month
The hole at the start of this line is real, and it is explained where it appears. The reason travels with the gap itself rather than being retyped here, so it cannot drift from what the run actually measured.
The newest month the vendor shows is deliberately not on this line. Why, and by how much it moved, is stated in the sources section from the measurement rather than from memory.
The two channel columns are summed here, not taken from a roll-up. Whether those columns are retail figures at all was the open question about this state, and the reconciliation that settles it runs on every build; its result is printed with the checks below.
Adult-use and medical
Delaware ran a medical programme for years before adult-use retail opened, and both channels are still trading. The vendor reports them as separate figures and does not say how it separates them, so they are published side by side and the split is labelled as separately reported rather than as a per-transaction flag.
Retail sales by channel, by month
The medical channel predates this file entirely, which is what the state's own annual report is carried for. It feeds no chart.
The third column in the vendor's table is not one of these lines. It measures purchases between licensees rather than dollars over a till, and it has its own basis and its own chart below.
Wholesale purchases
The vendor publishes a third column beside the two retail channels, describing it as wholesale purchases where they are provided. It is shown here on its own because it answers a different question, and because the project's whole reason for measuring the scope of the retail columns was to be sure this figure is not already inside them.
Wholesale purchases, by month
Conditional coverage, in the vendor's own words. The column is qualified with "if provided", which says the coverage depends on something without saying on what. It is never used as a denominator and never added to a retail figure.
No weight accompanies it, so nothing per unit of product can be derived from it.
Licences
The vendor's count of state-issued commercial licences it saw as active in each month. It is published in a separate table from the sales figures and carries its own run of months, so any month outside that run is drawn as a gap with its own stated reason rather than a flat line carried forward. Where that run sits on the axis is counted, cell by cell, in this field's note in the state file.
Active commercial licences, by month
Active, not issued. A count of licences the vendor treated as active in a month, not a running total of licences ever awarded. The page does not say whether a surrendered or lapsed licence leaves the count, so it is not comparable with a state that publishes lifetime issuance.
The breakdown by type is a snapshot, not a series. Those tiles carry their own as-of stamp on the vendor page and refresh on a faster clock than the sales table.
Questions this page gets asked
Why is a private company the source for a whole state?
Because the state itself publishes nothing at this frequency, and the page says so from the run rather than from an editor's memory. What makes the vendor usable rather than merely available is that the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links it from its own navigation; the project's vendor rule allows that with a visible label, which every field here carries. Two negatives were checked rather than assumed: the open-data portal returns nothing for cannabis against control searches on the same endpoint that do return results, and the state's monthly financial reports contain no cannabis line.
Does the headline figure include purchases between licensees?
No. That was the genuinely open question about this state, because the vendor's sales widget carries a caption that leaves it ambiguous. It is settled by arithmetic rather than by reading the caption: the same page publishes a retail-titled breakdown tabbed by the same channels, and the two competing readings of the columns are differenced against it on every build. The result, the tolerance it was judged against and what the losing reading missed by are printed with the structural checks below. If the two readings ever stop separating, the page will say the scope is unstated instead of choosing.
Why does the chart begin with a hole?
Because the vendor keeps no archive behind the months it displays, and this project's first capture came after the market opened. The months in between were already gone. They are drawn as gaps carrying the reason, rather than trimmed away so the line could start tidily - a chart that quietly began later would tell you nothing was missing.
Why isn't the newest month on the chart?
Because it is still filling in, and that is measured rather than assumed: two captures a week apart were compared cell by cell, they agreed on every older month to the dollar, and they disagreed on the newest one. Publishing it as finished would draw a fall that is not there. Its value so far is shown separately and labelled, with the size of the movement stated from the comparison.
What about the sales total I read about in the press?
It is not on this page in any form, and the build refuses if any rendering of it reaches a shipped file. It appears on no state page and on no vendor page, and neither the period it covers nor which channels it counts is stated anywhere. The state did publish one milestone release early in the market's life quoting a retail figure; that release does name its channel, but it dates the figure from the market's opening rather than to a calendar month, so there is no month in this series to place it against and it is carried as context instead.
Why is there no price, patient count or tax figure?
Each is absent for its own reason, stated where the reader meets it, and none is estimated. On price: no source pairs a dollar figure with the weight of a product a customer bought, and what the vendor does publish are cultivation weights, which are a different thing. On patients: nothing publishes a count; the annual report gives card applications for a year, which is a flow of paperwork rather than a stock of people, and substituting one for the other would be a different measure wearing the same label. On tax: the state levies a retail marijuana tax and breaks out no revenue for it in any public monthly publication, so there is nothing to join, and deriving one from a statutory rate would manufacture a series.
Where these figures come from
Sourcing, basis and comparabilityDelaware publishes no monthly cannabis figures itself. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner's only data product is an annual narrative PDF; its newest edition runs to 29 pages, covers calendar 2024 and reports $44,866,015 of medical sales for that year - a year that ended before adult-use retail opened - and no 2025 edition exists at the same path (HTTP 404 against a control on the same host and directory that answered HTTP 200 with 1,373,505 bytes). That is why a vendor page is the canonical source for this state and a state page is not. Every sales figure on this page comes from NCS Analytics, a private company, and is not state-published. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links the page from its own navigation, which is why it is publishable at all under the project's vendor-data rule, but NCS states that it does not certify the data's accuracy and reserves the right to withdraw it without notice.
Basis — NCS Adult Use and Medicinal columns, as printed
- Measurement
- vendor_reported
- Money
- unstated
- Tax
- unstated
- Period
- calendar_month
- Scope
- retail_only
- Geography
- statewide
- Channels
- medical, adult_use
Why an axis above reads unstated: NCS labels its sales widget "Total Reported Sales" and says those totals combine retail with wholesale purchases, so what the Adult Use and Medicinal columns count is not stated. It is measured here instead, against the page's own product category breakdown, which the vendor titles retail and tabs All, Medicinal and Adult Use: across two reconciliations spanning one month and two captures, each channel's product categories sum to that channel's column to within $2, against a rounding tolerance of $6. Had those columns already contained the wholesale dollars, the retail-titled widget would have come in below them by the Wholesale column; instead that reading is out by at least $776,606, which no rounding explains. Adult Use and Medicinal are read as RETAIL, and Wholesale as a separate figure that is never added to them. Gross versus net of discounts, and whether the figures include sales tax, are separate questions and neither is answered anywhere on the page; both stay unstated. An undocumented basis is a gap to be labelled, never filled in with the most likely answer.
Basis — NCS Wholesale column, as printed
- Measurement
- vendor_reported
- Money
- unstated
- Tax
- unstated
- Period
- calendar_month
- Scope
- wholesale_only
- Geography
- statewide
- Channels
- unknown
Why an axis above reads unstated: The page describes this column only as wholesale purchases "if provided", which says the coverage is conditional without saying on what. It is carried as its own field, never folded into retail, and never used as a denominator. An undocumented basis is a gap to be labelled, never filled in with the most likely answer.
Basis — NCS active commercial licence count
- Measurement
- vendor_reported
- Money
- not_applicable
- Tax
- not_applicable
- Period
- point_in_time
- Scope
- unstated
- Geography
- statewide
Why an axis above reads unstated: The widget is headed state-issued active commercial licences and says nothing about whether a surrendered or lapsed licence leaves the count, so it is a count of what the vendor saw as active in that month and not a cumulative issuance total. An undocumented basis is a gap to be labelled, never filled in with the most likely answer.
Basis — OMC annual report, medical sales for a calendar year
- Measurement
- measured
- Money
- unstated
- Tax
- unstated
- Period
- calendar_year
- Scope
- retail_only
- Geography
- statewide
- Channels
- medical
Why an axis above reads unstated: The report gives one aggregate sentence and no method. It is used as context and as proof that the medical channel predates this file, and it feeds no chart. An undocumented basis is a gap to be labelled, never filled in with the most likely answer.
Sources 3
| Role | Source | Format | From | Last verified | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canonical | NCS Analytics Transparency Project — Delaware NCS Analytics Vendor data — not state-published | html | rolling | 2026-08-23 | NCS exposes a rolling window of six months and keeps no archive. Delaware's adult-use market opened in 2025-08 and the first capture this project holds is from 2026-08-15, so six months - 2025-08 to 2026-01 - had already rolled off before any archiving began. They are unrecoverable from this source and are published as gaps carrying that reason, never as zeros and never estimated. |
| Cross-check | Delaware OMC — Annual Report Delaware Office of the Marijuana Commissioner | 2024 | 2026-08-23 | Never averaged with the canonical figure. Not comparable and not expected to be. The report is annual, covers a calendar year that ended before adult-use retail opened, and shares no period with the vendor series. It is carried because it is the only state-published sales figure that exists and because it is what proves the medical channel predates this file. | |
| Cross-check | Delaware OMC — first-month recreational sales release State of Delaware News | html | 2025-08 | 2026-08-23 | Never averaged with the canonical figure. It cannot be reconciled with anything. The release gives a "Month 1" total dated only from the market's opening ("Since opening in early August") rather than to a calendar month, so there is no month in this series to place it against; and the vendor series does not reach back that far in any case, the earliest month it still shows being 2026-02. |
Why each marker above says what it says
| Metric | Marker | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Retail sales | Partly comparable | Every sales figure on this page comes from NCS Analytics, a private company, and is not state-published. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links the page from its own navigation, which is why it is publishable at all under the project's vendor-data rule, but NCS states that it does not certify the data's accuracy and reserves the right to withdraw it without notice. NCS labels its sales widget "Total Reported Sales" and says those totals combine retail with wholesale purchases, so what the Adult Use and Medicinal columns count is not stated. It is measured here instead, against the page's own product category breakdown, which the vendor titles retail and tabs All, Medicinal and Adult Use: across two reconciliations spanning one month and two captures, each channel's product categories sum to that channel's column to within $2, against a rounding tolerance of $6. Had those columns already contained the wholesale dollars, the retail-titled widget would have come in below them by the Wholesale column; instead that reading is out by at least $776,606, which no rounding explains. Adult Use and Medicinal are read as RETAIL, and Wholesale as a separate figure that is never added to them. NCS exposes a rolling window of six months and keeps no archive. Delaware's adult-use market opened in 2025-08 and the first capture this project holds is from 2026-08-15, so six months - 2025-08 to 2026-01 - had already rolled off before any archiving began. They are unrecoverable from this source and are published as gaps carrying that reason, never as zeros and never estimated. |
| Medical / adult-use split | Partly comparable | The vendor reports the two channels as separate figures - two columns in the sales table and two tabs in the product breakdown - and it does not say how it separates them. It is recorded as separately reported rather than as a per-transaction attribute, because nothing on the page states that it is one, and it is certainly not a licence attribute or a tax exemption standing in for a split. Every sales figure on this page comes from NCS Analytics, a private company, and is not state-published. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links the page from its own navigation, which is why it is publishable at all under the project's vendor-data rule, but NCS states that it does not certify the data's accuracy and reserves the right to withdraw it without notice. |
| Price per gram | Not like-for-like | No price per gram is derivable for Delaware. The only weights NCS publishes are cultivation figures - live plant counts, harvest wet weight and an average wet weight per plant - and none of them pairs a dollar figure with the weight of the product a customer bought. Nothing is estimated in their place, so Delaware carries no price line and joins no price chart. |
| Per capita | Partly comparable | Per-capita inherits every flag on its numerator, and this numerator is vendor-reported with an unstated money and tax basis. NCS exposes a rolling window of six months and keeps no archive. Delaware's adult-use market opened in 2025-08 and the first capture this project holds is from 2026-08-15, so six months - 2025-08 to 2026-01 - had already rolled off before any archiving began. They are unrecoverable from this source and are published as gaps carrying that reason, never as zeros and never estimated. |
| Patient counts | Not like-for-like | No patient count is published for Delaware in any artifact this pipeline reads. The vendor page carries none, and the state's annual report gives card APPLICATIONS for a year - a flow of paperwork, not a stock of patients - which is not the same measure and is never substituted for one. |
| Licence counts | Partly comparable | A vendor's count of what it saw as active in each month. It is not an issuance total and the page does not say whether a surrendered licence leaves it. Every sales figure on this page comes from NCS Analytics, a private company, and is not state-published. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner links the page from its own navigation, which is why it is publishable at all under the project's vendor-data rule, but NCS states that it does not certify the data's accuracy and reserves the right to withdraw it without notice. |
| Tax revenue | Not like-for-like | Delaware levies a retail marijuana tax and publishes no figure for it. The Department of Finance's monthly reports and its revenue-detail page carry no cannabis line, and the vendor page carries no tax column, so there is nothing to join and nothing is derived from a rate. |
What is checked on every run 5
| Check | Kind | Last result |
|---|---|---|
| Each channel's product-category breakdown must sum to that channel's column in the sales table. This is the check that resolves what the columns count. | cross source reconciliation | PASS — two reconciliations, worst residual $2 against a tolerance of $6; the columns-already-include-wholesale reading missed by at least $776,606. |
| Within the product widget, the All tab must equal the Medicinal tab plus the Adult Use tab. It is independent of the sales table and it is what shows the three tabs partition one population rather than overlapping. Because it is independent, it is measured over EVERY trio the captures carry rather than over the subset the reconciliation above can use - that one needs a sales row to difference against and this one does not, and sharing its filtered list would have made this description false while dropping the trio for the month the sales table has not reached. | identity | PASS - additive on three trios spanning two months, worst residual $2 against a tolerance of $6. |
| The sales table must expose the rolling window at its stated depth. A shorter table means the vendor changed the window and the rolloff sentence would be wrong. | shape assertion | PASS — six months in the table. |
| Months older than the newest must not move between captures. This is what makes the newest-month exclusion a measurement rather than a precaution. It is run over BOTH vendor widgets - the sales table and the licence table - because a model measured on one and stated for the file is a model for a table, not for a file. | cross source reconciliation | three money cells moved across one capture pair; five of the six shared months were unchanged to the dollar. On the licence table, across the two captures readable here the licence count moved on one month - 2026-08 went from 54 to 55 between the 2026-08-15 and 2026-08-23 captures - and that is only the newest month the widget shows. The move is recorded rather than smoothed, and it is not the same kind of event as a money revision: a licence granted or surrendered after a month's snapshot changes what the count counts, it does not correct a total. |
| No tax figure is published for Delaware, so no tax-versus-sales identity exists to check. | unchecked | Not cross-checked. The state publishes no cannabis tax line and the vendor page has no tax column. Deriving one from a statutory rate would manufacture a series, so none is offered. |
The regulator's own notes, and what is still open
The regulator's own notes
Total Reported Sales Analyzed, Total Reported Sales combine all reported sales, including retail sales transactions as well as wholesale purchases if provided.
— NCS Analytics, Transparency Project Delaware, Total Reported Sales Analyzed caption
In 2024, total marijuana sales under MMP were $44,866,015.
— Delaware OMC, Annual Report for calendar 2024
NCS does not certify its accuracy and makes no claims, promises, or guarantees, regarding the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the Data. NCS reserves the right to discontinue providing any or all of the Data at any time with or without notice.
— NCS Analytics, site footer
Open questions on this data
Unresolved definitional questions that gate something. Listed because a question nobody can see is a question nobody closes.
- Will the OMC publish a monthly series, or release one on request, so that Delaware stops depending on a vendor? Closing it needs: File a public-records request with the OMC for monthly sales by channel, and re-probe the annual-reports index for a newer edition on every run.
- Can the months between the adult-use launch and the first capture be recovered from anywhere? Closing it needs: Ask NCS whether it retains history behind the window, and ask the OMC for the same months. Web archives of the vendor page would also settle it if any exist.