Illinois marijuana gross sales reached a file excessive of greater than $1.5 billion in 2022—and this previous December marked the strongest gross sales month thus far—officers introduced on Friday.
The Illinois Division of Monetary and Skilled Regulation (IDFPR) mentioned that “2022 set grownup use hashish gross sales data in all classes it tracks.”
That features a yearly adult-use hashish gross sales whole of $1,552,324,820, which is 12 % greater than the 2021 whole of $1,379,088,278 and 131 % greater than 2020, which noticed $669,084,410 in gross sales.
On a month-to-month foundation, December 2022 set a brand new file. Adults spent $143,899,826 on 3,446,978 marijuana merchandise that month. The earlier file occurred in December 2021, with $137,896,859 in gross sales from 3,180,944 hashish objects.
Illinois residents accounted for $95,634,565 in marijuana gross sales final month, in comparison with $42,363,394 from out-of-state guests.
“Once I signed the Hashish Regulation and Tax Act into legislation in 2019, we set out on an bold aim: to create essentially the most equitable and economically affluent hashish trade within the nation,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) mentioned in a press launch. “Our knowledge from 2022 reveals that we’re effectively on our means in direction of making that concept a actuality.”
The brand new figures don’t embrace medical hashish gross sales, that are tracked individually by a special company.
Officers additionally touted the truth that Illinois at the moment has 113 retail dispensaries working within the state, together with three social fairness licensees that had been accepted final yr after a protracted effort by the administration to begin fulfilling fairness targets.
“Not solely did we break our earlier gross sales file by greater than 12 % with a complete of greater than $1.5 billion, we additionally noticed the primary of our social fairness grownup use hashish dispensaries open their doorways for enterprise—paving the way in which for a fair stronger 2023,” Pritzker said.
IDFPR Secretary Mario Treto mentioned that 2022 “marks the second straight yr that Illinois’ grownup use hashish trade has seen record-setting progress, and we’re excited for what the longer term holds for essentially the most equitable hashish trade within the nation.”
“We’re optimistic the trade will solely proceed to flourish in 2023, as we welcome extra dispensaries to Illinois,” he mentioned.
For the 2022 calendar yr, the state crossed the $1 billion mark in August—two months sooner than it took to succeed in that milestone in 2021.
Final yr, Pritzker individually touted the state’s marijuana gross sales and ensuing tax income for the 2022 Fiscal Yr. Illinois collected $445.3 million in tax {dollars} from $1.5 billion in hashish gross sales throughout that interval. That’s a 50 % improve is hashish tax {dollars} in comparison with the prior fiscal yr.
However there’s nonetheless work to be executed, officers concede. In September, state regulators launched a report that exposed a obvious lack of range amongst enterprise house owners within the adult-use marijuana market. It additionally outlined a plan to start turning that round within the present fiscal yr, with the trade set to considerably increase as practically 200 new social fairness companies come on-line.
The governor and different state officers have emphasised that they’re dedicated to making sure that parts of tax income from the marijuana market go towards neighborhood reinvestment, as prescribed beneath the state’s legalization legislation.
In June, Illinois officers introduced that the state was awarding $45 million in grants funded by marijuana tax {dollars} to assist neighborhood reinvestment in areas “hardest hit by the failed battle on medication.”
That marked the second spherical of funding that’s been made out there via the state’s Restore, Reinvest, and Renew (R3) program, which was established beneath Illinois’s adult-use hashish legalization legislation.
In 2021, state officers additionally put $3.5 million in cannabis-generated funds towards efforts to scale back violence via road intervention applications.
Along with offering neighborhood reinvestment funding, the governor introduced in 2020 that his workplace had processed greater than 500,000 expungements and pardons for folks with low-level hashish convictions on their data.
Pritzker additionally signed laws final yr that may make it so courts can not deny petitions to expunge or seal data based mostly on a constructive drug take a look at for marijuana.
A state-funded initiative was additionally established to assist residents with marijuana convictions get authorized assist and different providers to have their data expunged.