Illinois Makes Millions More Tax Dollars Off Weed Than Booze

It's not just a couple of million dollars more, either. The Illinois Department of Revenue says that sales of recreational weed have produced nearly $121 million in tax revenue for Illinois, compared to about $99 million for wine, beer, and/or spirits.

And that's just since the first of this year.

When you look at the numbers, you can see the steady growth of recreational marijuana sales here in Illinois going up with each passing month. The Illinois Department of Revenue reports that last month Illinois residents spent about $80 million (that's before taxes), on recreational marijuana products, while out-of-state residents and medical weed patients each bought about $35 million worth of cannabis for the month, which brings their April total to $70 million. Add the recreational sales to the out-of-state and medical sales, and you're looking at $150 million, pre-tax.

Patch.com:

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, whose state prohibits both medical and recreational marijuana use, said his state is losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars to its southern neighbor.

"Frankly I'm kind of tired of talking to the governor from Illinois," Evers said in a video posted to social media. "Whenever I get with him, he thanks me for having Wisconsinites crossing the border to buy marijuana," Evers said of Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

With nearly every month breaking the previous month's sales numbers for adult-use marijuana products, assuming that trend holds, Illinois could see more than $1 billion in marijuana sales this year. In 2020, the state sold about $670 million in cannabis and took in $205.4 million in tax revenue.

To put that into a little perspective, while Illinois is hoping for a billion dollar sales year, Colorado is looking at a haul of over $2 billion in sales for 2021.