Michigan closed out the gruesome year of 2021 with another record-shattering month of adult-use cannabis sales in December, state officials say.
The Land of 10,000 joints, er, we mean Lakes, witnessed upwards of $136 million in recreational cannabis sales and about $34 million in medicinal cannabis sales back in December.
Earlier this week, Andrew Brisbo, executive chair of the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency (MRA), expressed that the metrics “celebrated another high (pun intended) for the adult-use cannabis industry.” The aforementioned adult-use cannabis sales record occurred in the fall of last year, with about $128.5 million in cannabis purchases.
“It’s great to point out that the new high (another cannabis pun we’re guessing) is not thanks to rising prices,” he stated. “Instead, sales in medicinal and adult-use continue to fall.”
While last month’s set the new record for adult-use cannabis sales, Michigan experienced the most integrated recreational and medicinal cannabis sales in the summer, with about $170 million in bud sold.
The latest metrics bring the state’s total weed sales from last year to approximately $1.31B for adult use and $481.2M for medicinal cannabis. And those buys are deciphering into hundreds of millions of bucks in tax revenue for Michigan.
Nearly $130 million is allocated for a cannabis excise tax account that backs several ambitions such as infrastructure and general education, MRA ombudsmen David Harns expressed. An additional $115 million will back the Michigan general fund.
In adjacent state Illinois, last month was also another record-shattering timetable, with approximately $138.2 million in adult-use cannabis exchanges.
In 2021, Illinois raked in approximately $100 million more in tax income from recreational cannabis sales than from spirits, state metrics reveal. Additionally, cannabis tax dollars have transcended those for spirits every month since last spring.
A portion of that cannabis tax gain is currently funding social equity initiatives in the land of 10,000 lakes. For instance, Illinois administrators revealed last month that applications are available for nearly $45 million in fresh grants—funded by cannabis tax greenbacks—that will back programs designed to reinvest in neighborhoods most harmed by the terrible drug war of the last 100 years.
States that have legalized cannabis have, in unison, rendered more than $10 billion in tax dollars since the initial legal sales began in 2014, per a report discharged by the Cannabis Policy Project (MPP) earlier this month.
In arid land Arizona, medicinal and adult-use bud sales passed $1 billion in the first ten months of last year, Arizona tax big whigs2 expressed.
The Golden State banked nearly $818 million in adult-use cannabis tax monies amidst the 2020-2021 fiscal year, MI officials estimated last summer. That’s a 55 percent uptick in cannabis earnings compared to the prior year.
Another contemporary scientific review of cannabis sales data in Colorado, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington discovered that weed purchases “ increased significantly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic over the course of the last two years.”
Michigan is no stranger to cannabis sales records. What does all of this mean socially? Michigan is just another case of an emerging, successful recreational cannabis market. We’ve covered Illinois, Arizona, Nevada, and many others; Luckily, it has all been the same experience: a thriving market with loads of upside for potential and the successful fiscal quarters to back it up.
Despite the immense popularity of cannabis in the midwest, the legal markets are far and few in between. Well, they used to be. Now, only a few states in the midwest remain with any form of cannabis legalization (or decriminalization.) Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio are a few of those states. However, each of those states has shown interest in cannabis legalization (or decriminalization) in the last few months.