For The 1st Time, Illinois Weed Sales Don’t Set A Monthly Record

Since legalization of recreational marijuana began at the first of the year, Illinois failed to break a new month-over-month sales record in November.

Before you think that perhaps the infatuation with recreational weed has hit its zenith and will wither away to virtually nothing, I should point out that although down, sales were only off by about $80,000 ($78,856), according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

October sales totals of recreational marijuana products came in at $75,278,400.15. In November that number dropped to $75,199,344.33. So, about 1,000 less items were sold in November than the previous month.

We can thank out-of-state buyers for picking up some of Illinois' sales slack, as they purchased just under $95,000 more in adult-use marijuana products than they grabbed up in October.

So, while sales may be down in November, they're still up twice as much from where they were at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Medical marijuana sales in Illinois are doing brisk business, despite a small drop in recreational sales in November. Here in Illinois, total retail sales by medical dispensaries topped $331 million in January through November, compared to nearly $251 million in all of 2019. Overall medical patient registration is up by more than 48 percent from the start of the year to a total of nearly 146,000 patients in December.

In looking at some poll numbers (assuming you have any trust whatsoever in poll numbers) from Harris, I was surprised to read that more than 40 percent of adults who have previously consumed cannabis have either started or increased their level of consumption since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. And, even more surprisingly (to me, anyway) was that among the 21 and over crowd who consume cannabis, 45 percent said they have reduced or replaced their alcohol consumption with marijuana.

That can't be good news for the liquor industry.