Illinois has issued another round of adult-use cannabis dispensary licenses

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The state now has 177 licensed cannabis shops as it brings growth to the industry

The recreational cannabis market in the state of Illinois seems to be taking more and more shape. Prairie State regulators announced that the second round of licensing conditions has been issued to dispensaries seeking to become part of this lucrative market.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) joined with Governor JB Pritzker to announce that they issued the second round of licensing conditions last Friday. This is in addition to the first batch of licenses that had been issued on previous days.

After conducting a series of lotteries last summer, the most recent set selected by officials is 28 applicants. The idea of those lotteries is to issue a total of 185 retail licenses to be part of the adult-use marijuana market, the governor’s official press release confirms.

With the issuance of the latest licenses late last week, the awardees bring the number of conditional licenses to 177. This means that state officials are close to meeting the full quota and the market would be more ready than ever to begin opening its doors.

The recent release indicated that 41% of the applicants selected for the licenses are majority black-owned, while 7% and another 4% are credited to majority white and Latino properties, respectively. 38% of the successful bidders did not disclose the race of their owners. However, it is still worth noting that all eligible businesses qualify as Social Equity Applicants under the Cannabis Tax and Regulation Act that legalized adult-use cannabis in Illinois.

“These 177 licenses represent 177 individual but powerful steps toward addressing the decades of injustice preceding cannabis legalization, and I’m proud to help foster an industry that looks much more like the state it serves than its counterparts across the nation,” Pritzker said in a public statement. “We can’t turn back time, but we can act with an intentional eye for accountability and diversity, and that’s exactly how we in Illinois will continue to move forward.”