People lined up for hours and paid outrageous taxes on cannabis products on the first day of legal weed in the state of Illinois.
The state’s lieutenant governor was among the first people to purchase legal, recreational cannabis products in Illinois, beating crowds that lined up as early as 2am on the morning of January 1, 2020.
Illinois is now the tenth state to allow for recreational cannabis sales. “[A]dults 21 and older [can] visit licensed dealers and buy up to 30 grams of flower, 5 grams of concentrate or 500 milligrams of infused products such as edibles,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
According to the Tribune, as well, the first day of recreational cannabis sales went off (mostly) without a hitch: “The mood was festive Wednesday as customers queued up — some overnight — to buy cannabis flower, gummies, chocolates and other products from the Chicago-area dispensaries among 37 state-sanctioned stores in Illinois that were ready to open. There were foreseen hiccups as the stores started selling a substance generally barred since the 1930s, but no serious incidents were reported as of late afternoon in the crowds that huddled on sidewalks and in parking lots on a bright, relatively temperate New Year’s Day.”
The state is taking incremental steps in pursuit of full legalization. There are only a few dozen recreational cannabis retailers in the state, and the vast majority of those retailers were licensed under a previous law legalizing medicinal marijuana. The state is still exploring the possibility of expanding the number of retailer licenses available, and many Illinois cities are struggling with whether to allow sales within city limits. Chicago, the state’s largest city, allows recreational cannabis sales, but most of the surrounding suburban cities have opted out.
Ahead of Wednesday’s recreational marijuana sales, the state’s governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, issued pardons to around 11,000 Illinoisans convicted of possessing small amounts of marijuana.
But if Illinoisans are excited about the possibility of consuming marijuana products legally, they were quickly brought back to earth by the actual price of legal weed. Retailers across the city of Chicago report an average price of between $13 and $18 for a single, pre-rolled joint. Raw products can run you up to $60 per gram — and that’s not including Illinois’ hefty 33% cannabis tax.
Reason Magazine reports that recreational pot users in Illinois will be paying what amounts to a luxury tax for their products. The state “will be collecting a 7 percent tax from growers and various excise taxes (10 percent on buds, 20 percent on infused products, and 25 percent on products containing more than 35 percent THC) in addition to the general state sales tax of 6.25 percent and local sales taxes as high as 4.75 percent. The combined sales tax in Chicago is 10.25 percent, making the total retail levy there more than 30 percent for edibles, in addition to the impact of the cultivation tax.”
And that’s just the tax on consumers. Cannabis retailers will face their own “occupancy” tax hike of at least 3% in Cook County.
Shocked purchasers posted photos of their incredible (but unverified) receipts on social media. In some cases, users paid up to $300 for a few grams of legal cannabis.
PSA ~ The tax on cannabis in IL is hefty.
It’s based on being over or under 35% THC
Tax is either 20% or 25%
Trinity in Peoria charged $60 per g of hash which had $15 of tax on it.
The black market will continue to thrive if they gouge the price of the goods & the tax rates. pic.twitter.com/DUdRjnkTqI
— Easy Going Plant Based (@JoEzIcH) January 1, 2020
Someone's Cannabis purchase.
Well there you have it folks… Taxes Taxes Taxes, the very reason 150,000 citizens left Illinois last year. pic.twitter.com/mHU7GqVU7m— Ms. Ezell (@ms_ezell) January 1, 2020
That’s not great for users but could be very good for the state, which is still billions in the red and nearing complete bankruptcy.