According to the most recent monthly report from the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency, Michigan cannabis sales reached a record in July, recording $276 million in sales, with the lion’s share of sales coming from adult-use cannabis. Local cannabis businesses say they aren’t making much in profits, however.

The state will likely surpass the $3 billion mark in revenue for the first time in 2023. It reinforces the importance of the state’s cannabis market. If the trend continues, Michigan will become the second largest market in the nation after California. 

But insiders say making a profit in this industry is an entirely different scenario, nearly impossible for businesses following the rules. In addition, the constant flow of new licenses is increasing competition to unworkable levels.

“It’s kind of a race to the bottom, as they call it,” Beau Whitney, senior economist for the National Cannabis Industry Association, told Bridge Michigan. “Prices are going down, down and down because there’s so much competition, but at some point, prices won’t be able to go down any further.” 

Some locals say the current system won’t work for long under the current circumstances.

“I think that big corporate stores thought they could throw money at this and just keep throwing money at it, and it would work and it’s not working. That’s why most of your major dispensaries … are for sale,” said Jerry Millen, owner of The Greenhouse, a dispensary located in Walled Lake.

The incoming flow of new licenses doesn’t seem to be helping existing businesses much. During the past month, Michigan received 97 applications for adult-use use licenses, and issued 87 new licenses. Seventeen of the licenses were designated for class C growers, with a limit of up to 1,500 plants, per state regulations. 

A 10% excise tax was imposed on retailers in addition to a 6% sales tax after adult-use was legalized in Michigan in 2018. Thanks to high production costs and oversaturation of the market, consumers are happy but businesses are not. 

That average price of $99 for one ounce of adult-use cannabis is much cheaper than it was this time last year. The price for an ounce of medical cannabis is only slightly higher. 

A Boon for the Michigan Economy

While small businesses aren’t likely making much profit, local governments, however, are loving it. Tens of millions of dollars in revenue are being allocated to local governments across Michigan as a result of the state’s adult-use cannabis industry. 

According to FOX 2 Detroit, “Only 30% of total adult-use sales go to local governments, with the other 70% going to schools and roads. When contributions from last year are paired next to figures from 2021 and 2020, they show an industry that shows no signs of slowing down.”

Michigan voters legalized adult-use cannabis in 2018, when they approved Proposal 1, which made it legal for adults 21 and older to consume cannabis, and paved the way for a regulated cannabis market that launched in 2019. 

But despite strong sales numbers, Michigan, like other regulated cannabis markets, has become oversupplied with pot.

Illegal cannabis sales continue to thrive in the state, and Michigan regulators are taking action. Last October, The Detroit News reported that Brian Hanna, the acting director of the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency, told assembled media that “the agency is planning actions that will expose bad actors and serve as a warning to other regulated businesses.”

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The first year of legal cannabis sales in Illinois was a roaring success, but it turns out the second year was even better. 

Twice as good, in fact.

A report from the grimly named Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) showed that adult-use cannabis sales in the state totaled $1,379,088,278.61 in 2021––more than double the figure from the opening year of sales in 2020, which were roughly $669 million. 

The figures released by the IDFPR provide insight into the quantity of cannabis products sold, and when customers were buying them. 

The biggest month for pot sales in 2021 came at the very end of the year, with $137,896,859.11 generated in December. That was also the case in 2020, when the $86,857,898.27 worth of cannabis sales made December the highest-grossing month of that year. 

The IDFPR’s report also details the source of the money. Last year, $943,013,285.67 of the cannabis sales came from Illinois residents, while $436,176,093.93 came from out-of-state residents.

A total of 30,342,937 cannabis items were sold last year––up from 14,485,704 in 2020. 

Illinois’ recreational cannabis market opened for business on New Year’s Day 2020, a milestone that was met with long lines outside the states’ newly opened dispensaries. The first day of sales alone generated more than $3 million, and many of the shops ran out of weed during the opening week.

The figures continued to climb, giving the administration of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who signed the bill legalizing recreational cannabis in 2019, a reason to take a victory lap.

In June of 2020, Pritzker’s then-senior adviser for cannabis control Toi Hutchinson, who has since been hired as the Marijuana Policy Project’s president and CEO, said that the “successful launch of the Illinois legal cannabis industry represents new opportunities for entrepreneurs and the very communities that have historically been harmed by the failed war on drugs.” 

“The administration is dedicated to providing multiple points of entry into this new industry, from dispensary owners to transporters, to ensure legalization is equitable and accessible for all Illinoisans,” Hutchinson said. 

To that end, the economics have only been one facet of Illinois’ new marijuana law. As with other states that have legalized cannabis, there has also been a concerted effort by policymakers to redress previous convictions of marijuana offenders. 

When legalization took effect in Illinois, Pritzker heralded the occasion with more than 11,000 pardons for nonviolent cannabis offenders.

“We are ending the 50-year-long war on cannabis,” Pritzker said at the time. “We are restoring rights to tens of thousands of Illinoisans. We are bringing regulation and safety to a previously unsafe and illegal market. And we are creating a new industry that puts equity at its very core.”

Pritzker did the same to kick off 2021, issuing more than 9,000 pardons for low-level cannabis offenders and expunging more than 490,000 pot-related arrests.

“Statewide, Illinoisans hold hundreds of thousands low-level cannabis-related records, a burden disproportionately shouldered by communities of color,” Pritzker said in a statement released at the time. “We will never be able to fully remedy the depth of that damage. But we can govern with the courage to admit the mistakes of our past—and the decency to set a better path forward.”

While most other states have legalized cannabis through the ballot process, Illinois became the first to do so through the legislature in 2019, something Pritzker touted at the time of the bill signing.

“As the first state in the nation to fully legalize adult-use cannabis through the legislative process, Illinois exemplifies the best of democracy: a bipartisan and deep commitment to better the lives of all of our people,” said Pritzker.

“Legalizing adult-use cannabis brings an important and overdue change to our state, and it’s the right thing to do. This legislation will clear the cannabis-related records of nonviolent offenders through an efficient combination of automatic expungement, gubernatorial pardon and individual court action. I’m so proud that our state is leading with equity and justice in its approach to cannabis legalization and its regulatory framework. Because of the work of the people here today and so many more all across our state, Illinois is moving forward with empathy and hope.”

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