{"id":43526,"date":"2020-07-09T13:31:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T21:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2020\/07\/09\/illinois-notches-record-breaking-cannabis-sales-in-june\/"},"modified":"2020-07-09T13:47:22","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T21:47:22","slug":"illinois-notches-record-breaking-cannabis-sales-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2020\/07\/09\/illinois-notches-record-breaking-cannabis-sales-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Notches Record-Breaking Cannabis Sales in June"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The cannabis industry in Illinois, which in June 2019 became the latest state to legalize<\/a>, broke its own record for recreational sales last month. The Prairie State\u2019s 56 adult-use dispensaries sold nearly a million cannabis items worth upwards of $47.6 million after taxes.<\/p>\n

According to official state figures reported by the Arlington Heights\u00a0Daily Herald<\/a>\u00a0and industry monitor\u00a0Marijuana Moment<\/a>, $35.3 million worth of sales came from in-state residents, with $12.4 million attributed to sales made by out-of-state visitors. All told, Illinois retailers sold 994,545 THC products in June 2020 \u2014 5,000 more than the previous month.<\/p>\n

Illinois dispensaries have sold over $239 million worth of merchandise since legal sales took effect Jan 1.<\/p>\n

This is, of course, good news for the state of Illinois. New tax figures are to be released later this month by the state\u00a0Department of Revenue<\/a>. In May \u2014also a record-breaking month \u2014 the state took in $12.5 million in cannabis taxes and associated sales taxes.<\/p>\n

That brought the state\u2019s tax collections from legal cannabis to $52.7 million for the first five months of sales \u2014 well above the $28 million estimated for this year\u2019s budget, which ended June 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Towns and counties that allow cannabis sales will begin adding their own taxes in July. While this might modestly increase the purchase price, it will be a boon to localities in a challenging time. <\/p>\n

Still Grappling with Equity\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Amid this boom, state and local authorities in the Land of Lincoln are grappling with how to craft a cannabis industry and regulation regime that will promote social equity<\/a> and begin to reverse the racial and economic injustices associated with marijuana prohibition and the War on Drugs.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, new licenses were created to encourage smaller businesses to enter the Illinois cannabis industry<\/a>. They were supposed to be issued by the state on July 1, Patch<\/a> reports. <\/p>\n

But since the COVID-19 crisis shut down much of state government, Pritzker has issued\u00a0executive orders<\/a>\u00a0extending or suspending the deadlines to apply for these new license categories designated for \u201ccraft\u201d growers, infusers and independent dispensaries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leading up to the passage of the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act<\/a>\u00a0 in June of 2019, medical marijuana dispensaries lobbied lawmakers and the office of Gov. JB Pritzker\u00a0to allow them to effectively monopolize the adult-use market for the first quarter of legal sales. These dispensaries are dominated by only a few large companies with little diversity among their leadership.<\/p>\n

Acting Illinois\u00a0Department of Agriculture<\/a>\u00a0director Jerry Costello II told Patch that his office is trying to open multiple paths into the industry for state residents who live in the communities that were hardest hit by marijuana prohibition. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic and the 6-week deadline extension granted to applicants have caused unforeseeable delays in the application review process,\u201d Costello said. \u201cThe Department is working tirelessly to ensure that applications are scored and awarded in a fair, deliberate and equitable manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office is similarly pledging progress. Patch quoted a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0issued last month by the Commerce Department featuring words from Toi Hutchinson, the former state senator who was a chief sponsor of the legalization bill and now serves as Pritzker\u2019s senior cannabis advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pritzker administration remains committed to protecting and pursuing diversity in the adult-use cannabis industry, despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d Hutchinson said. \u201cPritzker has made it clear the state\u2019s new industry is about more than revenue, it\u2019s about ensuring communities that have been left out and left behind have new opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Localities are meanwhile seeking their own institutional remedies for the social ills of prohibition. Chicago is\u00a0considering various experimental models<\/a>\u00a0for cultivation and retail sales aimed at empowering those communities disproportionately criminalized under prohibition. Ideas being weighed include a city-owned cultivation co-op for residents \u2013 including special membership options for low-income individuals, who can join on a \u201csweat equity\u201d basis.<\/p>\n

The Chicago suburb of Evanston is the first city<\/a>\u00a0in the United States to put revenues from legal cannabis sales into a \u201creparations\u201d fund for the city\u2019s African American residents \u2014 seeking to redress harms, not only from the War on Drugs, but also a greater matrix of social injustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TELL US<\/strong>, does your state have recreational cannabis?<\/p>\n

The post Illinois Notches Record-Breaking Cannabis Sales in June<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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The cannabis industry in Illinois, which in June 2019 became the latest state to legalize, broke its own record for recreational sales last month. The Prairie State\u2019s 56 adult-use dispensaries sold nearly a million cannabis items worth upwards of $47.6 million after taxes. According to official state figures reported byContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,3792,8916,2544,170,1051,362,1032],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43527,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43526\/revisions\/43527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}