Illinois officials have released a sweeping report on the state’s marijuana market, describing the past year as one of “explosive growth in the cannabis industry” and noting that licensed retailers sold more than $2 billion worth of legal products during fiscal year 2024.
The year saw the single-largest expansion of stores since Illinois began opening medical marijuana dispensaries, the report says, with 82 new retailers opening for business—many of which are owned by social equity licensees.
“This growth has allowed for the creation of new jobs, increased access to cannabis for consumers, and shows the State’s commitment to social equity in its cannabis programs,” officials wrote.
The new 144-page 2024 Annual Cannabis Report, compiled by the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office and published last week, is part of tracking requirements included in the state’s adult-use and medical marijuana laws. It includes data from various state departments, such as Financial and Professional Regulation, Agriculture, Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Public Health, Revenue and the State Police.
In general the tone is positive, with the report lauding regulators’ accomplishments between July 2023 and June 2024 and laying out plans for the coming year.
“The state of Illinois cannabis industry experienced unprecedented growth in FY24, laying the foundation for continued future success in FY25 and beyond,” said Mark Treto Jr., secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR). “IFDPR is honored to be a part of Illinois’ equity-centered program.”
The report’s list of accomplishments for the agency over the past year includes the issuance of the state’s 100th social equity retail license, the creation and implementation of curbside pick-up rules for medical marijuana patients, release of the first set of comprehensive rules for the licensed industry and even officials’ work assisting regulators in other states, for example Ohio and Rhode Island.
It’s worth noting that while state officials have touted their progress on diversifying ownership of the state’s legal marijuana industry, recent local reports have depicted how cannabis social equity applicants still struggle to get their businesses off the ground. The government recently spent $2.5 million on an independent report that concluded that while Illinois regulators have granted more licenses to women and people of color than any other regulated market in the United States, white men are still the most likely demographic to have a cannabis license in the state.
Further, the most recent Department of Agriculture status list indicates that only about 30 percent of businesses awarded specialty cannabis licenses are operational.
Going forward into the coming year, the new annual report says, regulators are working to continue expanding the licensed market, for example by helping to transition current conditional license holders to full retail licenses. Officials have also begun implementing a program allowing medical marijuana patients to pay a lower tax rate on purchases at any cannabis retailer in the state.
“This development harkens back to the ‘compassion’ in the original Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Program Act,” the report says, “and underscores the importance of never losing sight of the patients who were the foundation of this industry.”
The state Agriculture Department, for its part, highlighted in the new annual report its buildout of cannabis-related staff, a new rule allowing more grow space for craft cultivator licensees, the department’s hosting of an annual hemp summit and its participation in drafting and negotiating a hemp product regulatory bill.
In the year ahead, it says it aims to continue to support equity licensees’ construction and operations and also complete its state cannabis testing laboratory.
The Illinois State Police, for its part, said the year saw 6,166 inspections of various licensed marijuana facilities and the examination of nearly 3 million individual cannabis plants and products. The department reported 660 inspection violations to regulators at the Department of Agriculture and IFDPR.
Authorities also conducted a “total of 1,015 under 21 cover details resulting in two (2) sales to minors.”
Cannabis-related driving incidents appear to have fallen last year compared to the one before, that State Police said in the report, writing that its Division of Patrol “filed 424 DUI cannabis related charges in FY24 and reported 15 crashes involving cannabis or having a cannabis nexus, a decrease of 43% compared to FY23.”
In the year ahead, law enforcement will continue in coordination with state cannabis regulators, the report says, and the State Police aim to hire six additional security investigators “with the goal of maintaining 100% monthly inspection completion per licensed cannabis facility.”
Separately in Illinois, the state Supreme Court last month ruled that the odor of burnt marijuana alone cannot be lawfully used by police as probable cause to conduct a warrantless vehicle search.
This summer, officials also announced the award of $35 million in grants to 88 local organizations, using funds generated from taxes on adult-use marijuana sales to support community reinvestment efforts. Since launching the program, Illinois has awarded over $244 million in marijuana revenue-funded grants to that end.
At the same time that Illinois officials have worked to distinguish their market from other legal states in terms of social equity achievements, it also hasn’t been shy about promoting the overall economic success of the industry, which saw just under $2 billion worth of marijuana in calendar year 2023.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) has frequently joked about the fact that Illinois is benefiting from the lack of legal access in surrounding states. Going back to his State of the State address in 2020, he said out-of-state dollars will end up coming to Illinois and paying taxes for cannabis products that bolster the state’s coffers.
In July, the Pritzker administration announced that the state-legal cannabis industry passed the $1 billion sales mark for the year on July 1—about two weeks ahead of when that milestone was reached in the prior calendar year.
Illinois officials this past year also eyed making changes to how hemp-derived cannabinoids are regulated, but a proposal to do that failed to make it out of the General Assembly this session.
Separately, state senators earlier this year took up a bill that would have legalized psilocybin and allowed regulated access through service centers, where adults could use the drug in a supervised setting.
The state also gave preliminary approval in March to add female orgasmic disorder, or FOD, as a medical cannabis qualifying condition.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
Illinois officials have released a sweeping report on the state’s marijuana market, describing the past year as one of “explosive growth in the cannabis industry” and noting that licensed retailers sold more than $2 billion worth of legal products during fiscal year 2024. The year saw the single-largest expansion of stores since Illinois began opening Read More