Illinois Hits One Billion Dollars in Total Weed Sold
marijuana in the state of Illinois at just over $1 billion. Regulators are now touting the states cannabis industry as being both recession and pandemic proof.
Adult-use sales in Illinois steadily increased over the course of its’ first year. January of 2021 saw 972,045 items sold, ending with a 95% increase to 1,896,941 in December, while total sales started the year at $39,247,840 and 83 cents and ended at $86,857,898 and 27 cents, an increase of 121%.
Total year end sales of recreational marijuana, to both in and out of state customers, accounted for $669,084,410 and 12 cents. Medical marijuana purchased from licensed provisioning centers, by way of math, made up the $331,224,389 and 88 cent gap, leaving Illinois with the reported grand total of $1,000,308,800 in legal weed sales.
Whether or not this number includes the Illinois 10-25% THC level dependent excise taxes could not be determined.
New Mexico District Judge Grants Rights to Medical
the patient is incarcerated. Sen. Jacob Candelaria (D), one of the attorneys representing the DWI case that led to the decision, stated, “While the criminal industrial complex may have pushback or some concerns - take those to the Legislature. Because until such time as the Legislature changes the law, the law is clear: You must under existing law provide incarcerated persons with the ability to access medical cannabis free from penalty. It’s the law.”
The DWI case in question involved a man named Joe Montaño who was sentenced to serve 90 days under house arrest on the condition that he not use any illegal drugs. Bernalillo County lawyers argued that medical cannabis use was a violation of this condition. The district judge disagreed.
The ruling has interesting implications, which could reach other states where marijuana is legal but still considered a violation of policy to many various government agencies.
SEC Advises SPACs on Disclosure Before IPO
special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) on increasing their efforts to disclose information to investors.
SPACs, also known as blank-check companies, are described on the SEC website as, “a company with no operations that offers securities for cash and places substantially all the offering proceeds into a trust or escrow account for future use in the acquisition of one or more private operating companies. Following its initial public offering, or IPO, the SPAC will identify acquisition candidates and attempt to complete one or more business combination transactions after which the company will continue to do the operations of the acquired company or companies (“combined company”) as a public company.” They are becoming prevalent in the marijuana industry, as well as others.
The SEC Division of Corporation Finance’s guidance bluntly states, “The economic interests of the entity or management team that forms the SPAC (“sponsor(s)”) and the directors, officers and affiliates of a SPAC often differ from the economic interests of public shareholders which may lead to conflicts of interests as they evaluate and decide whether to recommend business combination transactions to shareholders.”
This method was most notably and recently used when Weedmaps, in a deal with a SPAC known as Silver Spike Acquisition, began their IPO with a value of $1.5 billion. This headline grabbing move may have been what prompted the SEC to urge SPACs to do a better job of disclosing conflicts of interest, as the guidance begins with “You may have heard the term SPAC recently referred to in the financial or other news.”
To read the full SEC investor bulletin visit: https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins/what-you
