Legal Weed was BIG business in Illinois in 2023

Only two states are making more off of legalized cannabis than the Land of Lincoln, and Illinois' love for legalized cannabis is growing heading into 2024, here are the numbers...

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According to the experts at Cannabis Business Times, Illinois sold a whopping $1,915,032,662 in legalized cannabis during 2023—only California with $4.9 billion, and Michigan with $2.9 billion sold more than the Land of Lincoln. The state averaged close to $160 million a month in sales of legalized cannabis in 2023, the site goes on to say...

"The 2023 estimate represents a roughly $10-million increase (or 0.5%) compared to 2022 sales, and this modest uptick comes despite Missouri, which shares more than 350 miles of real estate along the Mississippi River with Illinois, launching adult-use sales in February 2023, the first of Illinois’ five bordering states to do so...Still, 2023 marks Illinois’ fourth-consecutive year cracking the $1-billion benchmark."

To read more about the data on legalized cannabis sales in Illinois and across the country, click here!

How high can Illinois cannabis sales go?

I expected Illinois' legalized cannabis sales to drop severely in 2023 due to the fact that Missouri legalized cannabis, and Missourians would no longer have to travel across the river to stock up on legalized cannabis. So the fact that Illinois had a $10 million increase in sales is surprising, to say the least. I would expect this growth to continue, there will eventually be a cap on this growth when states like Wisconsin and Indiana legalize cannabis, my guess is Illinois will eventually settle around making $1.5 billion a year on cannabis when that happens. But until then I would expect Illinois to cross the $2 billion mark in 2024.