{"id":47717,"date":"2021-05-15T09:05:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T17:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/05\/15\/illinois-will-blow-past-1-billion-in-legal-marijuana-sales-in-2021-chamber-of-commerce-president-says\/"},"modified":"2021-05-15T13:45:18","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T21:45:18","slug":"illinois-will-blow-past-1-billion-in-legal-marijuana-sales-in-2021-chamber-of-commerce-president-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/05\/15\/illinois-will-blow-past-1-billion-in-legal-marijuana-sales-in-2021-chamber-of-commerce-president-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Will \u2018Blow Past\u2019 $1 Billion In Legal Marijuana Sales In 2021, Chamber Of Commerce President Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going to get to a billion dollars? I think we\u2019re going to blow past the billion dollars based on the experience in smaller states,\u201d the Chamber leader said.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Elyse Kelly, The Center Square<\/strong><\/p>\n

Illinois\u2019s cannabis industry is growing up fast, with adult-use recreational cannabis sales expected to hit $1 billion by year-end<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In March alone, Illinoisans spent $110 million on recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n

Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said one factor contributing to Illinois\u2019 explosive growth is that most neighboring states haven\u2019t legalized marijuana yet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we saw early on in states like Washington and Colorado is they did have demand come in from surrounding states, which frankly benefits our industry and benefits the taxes collected,\u201d Maisch said.<\/p>\n

Cannabis sales have already surpassed alcohol\u2019s tax revenues<\/a> for the state, and Maisch said he thinks $1 billion estimates are conservative.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going to get to a billion dollars? I think we\u2019re going to blow past the billion dollars based on the experience in smaller states,\u201d Maisch said.<\/p>\n

There are only a couple of things that could stop Illinois\u2019 explosive cannabis market growth, Maisch said. He said that policymakers could ruin things by pushing taxes too high as evidenced by the tobacco market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs taxes have gone up and up and up, they\u2019ve pushed people all the way into the black market or they\u2019ve created this grey market in which people are ostensibly paying some of the taxes, but they\u2019re still getting sources of tobacco products that avoid much of the tax,\u201d Maisch said.<\/p>\n

The other thing that could head off continued growth is other states opening up recreational-use markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you start to see surrounding states go to recreational, that\u2019s definitely going to flatten the curve because we\u2019re not going to be pulling in demand from other states,\u201d Maisch said.<\/p>\n

Maisch points out some concerns that accompany the explosion of Illinois\u2019s recreational cannabis market including workforce preparedness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those individuals who are deciding to go ahead and consume this product are really taking themselves out of a lot of job opportunities that they would otherwise be qualified, so there\u2019s a real upside and a downside,\u201d Maisch said.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to track the revenues this industry brings into state coffers, he points out, it will be harder to track the lack of productivity and qualified individuals to operate heavy machinery and other jobs that require employees to pass a drug test.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by The Center Square.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

DEA Finally Ready To End Federal Marijuana Research Monopoly, Agency Notifies Grower Applicants<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Illinois Will \u2018Blow Past\u2019 $1 Billion In Legal Marijuana Sales In 2021, Chamber Of Commerce President Says<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cAre we going to get to a billion dollars? I think we\u2019re going to blow past the billion dollars based on the experience in smaller states,\u201d the Chamber leader said. By Elyse Kelly, The Center Square Illinois\u2019s cannabis industry is growing up fast, with adult-use recreational cannabis sales expected toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1335,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47717"}],"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\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47718,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47717\/revisions\/47718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}