Illinois became the 11th state in the nation Tuesday to legalize adult-use marijuana after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a recreational bill into law.
The governor’s historic bill signing comes not long after New York and New Jersey both failed to legalize potential billion-dollar commercial recreational programs.
What lessons were learned by the cannabis industry, and how are business strategies shifting?
Why did those states fail, while Illinois succeeded in approving recreational marijuana via a legislative move?
Industry watchers see cannabis businesses generally maintaining their interest in the densely populated Northeast U.S., perhaps by trying to enter the growing medical cannabis markets.
Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey marijuana businesses hope to continue to build support for eventual adult-use legalization.