CHICAGO (CBS) — This month, the state of Illinois reached $1 billion in retail sales of cannabis for the year.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office announced Wednesday that state reached the milestone for marijuana sales on July 1—earlier this year than last. In 2023, the state hit $1 billion in marijuana sales on July 10.
Fiscal Year 2024 saw total cannabis sales exceed $2 billion, which exceeded the figures for Fiscal Years 2023 and 2022.
The state’s Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office shows Illinois residents made 81% of the total value of cannabis purchases for the first six months of the year, while out-of-state consumers made the other 19%. The sales broke down to 49% cannabis flower, 32% vape, and 22% edibles—along with liquid edibles at 1.1%, the state said.
Tax revenue from cannabis sales has led to more than $244 million in state grants for programs in youth development, economic development, and violence prevention, the state said.
The revenue also helped the state set up the Illinois Cannabis Social Equity Loan program, which helped connect the legal cannabis industry to communities historically impacted by the criminal justice system over marijuana, the state said. Almost $22 million in forgivable loans have been issued to craft growers, transporters, and infusers through the social equity program, the state said.
However, many social equity cannabis license holders in Illinois were held up by years of state delays, COVID delays, lawsuits, and red tape—which crushed some businesses before they even started in the first couple of years after recreational marijuana was legalized.
Recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2020, following a successful push that served as a major element of Gov. Pritzker’s first campaign for office in 2018.
Medical use of marijuana was legalized beginning more than a decade ago on Jan. 1, 2014, after then-Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill authorizing it into law the prior August.
There are currently 218 licensed dispensaries in the state.
