It doesn’t seem like Illinois can be stopped when it comes to cannabis sales. In April, the state had $114,961,668 in sales. $79 million of that came from Illinois residents. The rest, around $35 million, came from visitors from out of state where local cannabis markets aren’t established or up and running yet. If trends continue this way, as they are expected to, Illinois could see over a billion dollars in sales in 2021.

Statistics

As cannabis sales continue to increase, so does the tax revenue for the state. In 2020, the state brought in $174.8 million in tax revenue. This is the fifth highest in the country, after California, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon. Those states became some of the first to legalize both medical and recreational cannabis. 

Last month, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation released their collective information on tax revenue. This chart shows that cannabis is bringing in more money for the state than alcohol, something that was not predicted. From January to March of 2021, cannabis tax revenue reached over $86.5 million while alcohol tax revenue brought in barely over $72 million. That’s over a $14 million dollar difference for tax revenue. These numbers have been dominating sales across the state and look to continue.

Community Investment

With all this revenue, Illinois is returning it to communities most affected by the war on drugs. So far, the state has given more than $31.5 million in grants and funding for various programs across the state. This program is called R3, which stands for Restore, Reinvest, and Renew. Many of the programs funded are for addiction recovery programs, domestic violence centers, and teen programs to help communities in various ways.

And that’s not all that the state is doing. Back at the beginning of the year, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) announced that the state had expunged more than half a million low level cannabis possession charges from criminal records for people within the state. Since cannabis is legalized, those who were previously charged should still have that on their criminal record when it’s not a crime anymore. Governor Pritzker plans to expunge more records over the next few years, but half a million is a large start.

Legalization is changing and Illinois is seeing the benefits of those changes. Hopefully many more states in the years to come will embrace the legalization changes as well.

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