Half-Billion Spent On Recreational Marijuana In 9 Months
SPRINGFIELD, IL — Pot purchasers have spent more than a half-billion dollars on recreational marijuana products at Illinois dispensaries since the start of the year, according to data from state agencies.
Last month, adult-use cannabis sales in Illinois set a record for a seventh consecutive month, as the state collected more than $20 million in taxes from less than $68 million worth of cannabis products sold.
While legal sales to out-of-state buyers remained relatively steady in September , increasing by less than $650,000, Illinoisans bought more than $3 million more worth on weed than they did in August, according to figures from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
For the first time since the retail sale of marijuana began in January, pre-tax sales to in-state residents approached $50 million.
Taxes collected in the first quarter of the state's 2021 fiscal year have increased from just under $13.98 million in July, to $19.22 million in August and $21.16 million in September, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue, bringing in more tax revenue in the past three months than in the first six months of the state's legalization.
For the first nine months of legalization, consumers bought more than $431 million worth of adult-use cannabis, while the state collected about $100 million worth of taxes from the state's dispensaries.
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Because of months of delays in the state licensing process, the small group of companies that already had licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries prior to legalization has maintained a monopoly on adult-use cannabis sales for twice as long as lawmakers envisioned when they voted to legalize weed last year.
The permitting process for dispensaries, craft growers and transporters was laid out last year in the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, which legalized the possession of cannabis for adults 21 and over and laid out a framework for issuing licenses and spending the revenue from its retail sale. That mandated new licenses and an end to that temporary monopoly, which the medical dispensaries lobbied lawmakers to include, by May.
That never happened, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since regulators last month announced the first set of finalists for the new dispensary licenses, which factor in extra points for "social equity applicants," both winning and losing applicants have filed lawsuits challenging the process.
Disputes over the administration of the application process have also prompted an internal scoring review of dispensary license applications, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker suggested would be complete sometime in the fall.
"Working quickly is important, but getting it right is also important," Pritzker said at a Sept. 22 news conference. "There's obviously a delay as we try to expand and allow people to address deficiencies or points that they weren't awarded in the original process to make sure that we have as many people in that final lottery as deserve to be there."
This article originally appeared on the Across Illinois Patch
