Sales of highly taxed marijuana that have topped $1 billion are popular in a state with a $3.9 billion budget deficit. But other states are watching Illinois’ experiment that promised to ensure people of color could reap revenue in a rapidly growing, multi-billion dollar industry.”
That’s not happening.
Fulfilling a campaign promise made by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Illinois legalized cannabis via the Legislature rather than a voter initiative. Among Pritzker’s promises was that any legalization would also involve a clearing of cannabis offenders’ criminal records. And true to his word, Prtizker rang in the New Year on Dec. 31 by issuing 11,000 pardons.
When lawmakers crafted the law legalizing marijuana in Illinois, they tried to make sure it would right what many see as past wrongs linked to the drug.
In addition to expunging hundreds of thousands of criminal records for marijuana arrests and convictions, the law's architects added provisions meant to benefit communities that have been the most adversely affected by law enforcement's efforts to combat the drug.
After a hard-fought campaign this spring in the Illinois Legislature to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, cities across the state are trying to stifle the potentially lucrative business before it launches in January.
In May, Illinois became the 11th state to legalize adult-use cannabis, and the first to do so via legislative action. It’s made Illinois’ law different — and one might argue, better — than everyone else’s, and it provides a road map for other states struggling to get there.
The legal marijuana movement, which in recent years has flourished in coastal states, is taking up new roots in the Midwest even as efforts have stalled in nearly a dozen other states this year.
Lawmakers in Illinois approved a measure Friday to legalize the sale of marijuana to anyone over the age of 21, making it the second state in the nation’s interior to legalize pot, after Michigan.
The 11th state to legalize recreational weed will be...
So, which state looks to have an inside track on becoming the 11th to legalize adult-use marijuana? Had you asked a few months ago, it looked to be a neck-and-neck battle between New Jersey and New York. Unfortunately, efforts to legalize marijuana in both states fell apart, and neither looks to be in a position to pass legislation anytime soon. Instead, the Land of Lincoln appears to be in the pole position to become the 11th recreationally legalized state.
The governors of Illinois and New Jersey may not be marijuana users — but they could sure use some.
Both Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy need their state legislatures to legalize cannabis this year. Otherwise, they won't be able to pay their bills.
Both Pritzker and Murphy are relying on revenue from licenses or taxes from legal cannabis to balance state budgets this fiscal year, a gamble that makes the two states immediately among the hottest battlegrounds in the ongoing move to legalize the drug in states around the country.