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Illinois has officially exceeded $1 billion in adult-use marijuana sales in 2021, a major economic milestone since the state launched its retail market last year.<\/p>\n
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) reported on Tuesday that there were $123,375,372 in recreational cannabis purchases in October, raising the total to $1.12 billion for the year so far.<\/p>\n
Adults purchased 2,757,354 marijuana products last month, with most sales ($81,212,423) coming from state residents and the remainder ($42,162,949) from out-of-state visitors.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nVia IDFPR.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The $123 million haul is lower than the state\u2019s peak sales of $127,794,220 in July\u2014which officials partly attributed to a boost from the music festival Lollapalooza<\/a>\u2014but it was the second biggest month since sales launched in January 2020.<\/p>\n This is the eighth month in a row that adult-use marijuana sales surpassed $100 million<\/a> in the state.<\/p>\n The new\u00a0figures<\/a>\u00a0do not include sales of medical cannabis, which are tracked separately by a different agency.<\/p>\n The Illinois Chamber of Commerce president predicted back in May that retailers would sell\u00a0more than $1 billion in adult-use marijuana sales<\/a> in 2021, and they\u2019ve now accomplished that with two more months to go in the year.<\/p>\n The level of cannabis commerce means a significant increase in revenue for the state. Illinois sold about $670 million in marijuana last year and\u00a0took in $205.4 million in tax revenue<\/a>.<\/p>\n The state generated more quarterly tax dollars from marijuana than alcohol<\/a> for the first time earlier this year, the Illinois Department of Revenue reported in May. From January to March, Illinois generated about $86,537,000 in adult-use marijuana tax revenue, compared to $72,281,000 from liquor sales.<\/p>\n In July, state officials put $3.5 million in\u00a0cannabis-generated funds toward efforts to reduce violence<\/a>\u00a0through street intervention programs.<\/p>\n Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) is getting \u201ctired\u201d of hearing about these sales figures, he said in April, joking that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) always\u00a0\u201cthanks me for having Wisconsinites cross the border to buy marijuana\u201d<\/a>\u00a0since the neighboring state does not have a legal market.<\/p>\n Illinois officials have emphasized that the tax dollars from all of these sales are being put to good use. For example, the state announced in January that it is distributing\u00a0$31.5 million in grants funded by marijuana tax dollars<\/a>\u00a0to communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.<\/p>\n The funds are part of the state\u2019s Restore, Reinvest, and Renew (R3) program, which was\u00a0established under Illinois\u2019s adult-use cannabis legalization law<\/a>. It requires 25 percent of marijuana tax dollars to be put in that fund and used to provide disadvantaged people with services such as legal aid, youth development, community reentry and financial support.<\/p>\n Awarding the new grant money is not all that Illinois is doing to promote social equity and repair the harms of cannabis criminalization. Pritzker announced in December that his office had\u00a0processed more than 500,000 expungements and pardons<\/a>\u00a0for people with low-level cannabis convictions on their records.<\/p>\n Relatedly, a\u00a0state-funded initiative was recently established<\/a>\u00a0to help residents with marijuana convictions get legal aid and other services to have their records expunged.<\/p>\n But promoting social equity in the state\u2019s cannabis industry has proved challenging. Illinois has faced criticism from advocates and lawsuits from marijuana business applicants who feel officials haven\u2019t done enough to ensure diversity among business owners in the industry.<\/p>\n Pritzker\u2019s signed a bill in July that\u2019s meant to build upon the state\u2019s legalization law by\u00a0creating more cannabis business licensing opportunities<\/a>\u00a0to help people from disproportionately impacted communities enter into the marijuana industry. Regulators have since held a series of lotteries to award additional dispensary licenses, but losing companies have since filed legal challenges to the process.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a House committee approved a resolution earlier this year that\u00a0broadly condemns the war on drugs<\/a>, calling it \u201cthe United States\u2019 longest and costliest war and ultimately a complete and shameful failure.\u201d<\/p>\n Marijuana markets have been booming in states across the U.S.<\/p>\n Maine recreational marijuana sales\u00a0broke another record in August<\/a>, exceeding $10 million for the first time\u00a0since the adult-use market launched in October 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arizona brought in about\u00a0$21 million in medical and adult-use marijuana tax revenue<\/a>\u00a0in July, state officials recently reported on a new webpage that enables people to more easily track how the industry is evolving.<\/p>\n California collected\u00a0about $817 million in adult-use marijuana tax revenue<\/a>\u00a0during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, state officials estimated in August. That\u2019s 55 percent more cannabis earnings for state coffers than was generated in the prior fiscal year.<\/p>\n A recent scientific analysis of sales data in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington State found that marijuana purchases \u201chave\u00a0increased more during the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>\u00a0than in the previous two years.\u201d<\/p>\n In July alone, at least\u00a0three states saw record-breaking sales<\/a>\u00a0for recreational cannabis. The same goes for Missouri\u2019s medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n Michigan\u00a0marijuana sales broke another record in July<\/a>\u00a0with more than $171 million in cannabis transactions, according to data from the state\u2019s regulatory body. There were $128 million in adult-use sales and $43 million in medical cannabis purchases.<\/p>\n Throughout the pandemic, many states allowed cannabis retailers to remain open\u2014with governors and regulators in several markets\u00a0declaring marijuana businesses to be essential services<\/a>\u2014and some jurisdictions issued emergency rules allowing curbside pickup, delivery services or other more relaxed policies in order to facilitate social distancing.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, New York officials are\u00a0projecting that marijuana tax revenue<\/a>\u00a0will help keep the state\u2019s budget afloat as cigarette sales continue to decline over the coming years. But retails sales have yet to launch as of now.<\/p>\n Senators\u2019 Marijuana Amendment To Defense Bill Would Streamline Research<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Illinois Has Sold More Than $1 Billion In Marijuana So Far This Year, State Officially Announces<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Illinois has officially exceeded $1 billion in adult-use marijuana sales in 2021, a major economic milestone since the state launched its retail market last year. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) reported on Tuesday that there were $123,375,372 in recreational cannabis purchases in October, raising the totalContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":50905,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1335,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50904"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50906,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50904\/revisions\/50906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Illinois Has Sold More Than Billion In Marijuana So Far This Year, State Officially Announces<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"