There’s already a marijuana shortage in Illinois just as it’s about to become legal
There is already a shortage of cannabis flower in Illinois, and in 2020, the demand for it could see a tenfold increase, according to professionals’ estimates.
Illinois Supply and Provisions in Collinsville is the only metro-east dispensary authorized to sell its products to adults when recreational weed use becomes legal Jan. 1. It operates a cultivation center in central Illinois that spokesman Chris McCloud said is “ramping up to full capacity” over the next six months to keep up with medical cannabis patients’ needs and the anticipated turnout of recreational weed customers.
McCloud said the reason for the shortage now is the medical market’s demand, which has nearly doubled in the last year. There were more than 65,000 qualifying patients in Illinois this year, compared to about 36,000 around the same time in 2018.
And as Illinois dispensaries prepare for another increase in demand with legalization of recreational weed, they can’t buy product from another state, according to McCloud. He said it has to be cultivated in Illinois.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture has given all 21 cultivation centers in the state the OK to grow cannabis for both medical and recreational use, including Progressive Treatment Solutions in East St. Louis. The last three licenses were approved Dec. 23, according to a news release from the department.
But McCloud is advising recreational weed customers to be patient with dispensaries when they get their chance to make purchases in the new year. Illinois Supply and Provisions, formerly HCI Alternatives, will open its doors at 1014 Eastport Plaza Drive in Collinsville at 7 a.m. Jan. 1 for the first legal sales to anyone over 21 years old.
“If you were coming in for a specific product, it may or may not be there,” McCloud said. “... At the beginning, you’re going to have a supply issue.”
Medical cannabis patients will be able to make their purchases first when they show a program registry ID card. That’s required under state law.
“Technically, if you’ve been in line two hours, and a medical patient shows up, they move to the front of the line,” McCloud said.
Adam Orens, founder of the Marijuana Policy Group in Colorado, recently told St. Louis Public Radio that dispensaries should want to prioritize medical patients. MPG is a group of cannabis economists that formed in 2014, offering assessments of the emerging cannabis industry based on data.
“Those are very good customers from a provider’s perspective. They are generally heavier consumers,” he told the radio station.
According to Orens, long lines and shortages are to be expected in a new recreational marijuana market.
“The consumer may get (into the dispensary) after waiting in line and wish there was more selection,” he said, according to St. Louis Public Radio. “That’s possible. It’s happened in every market.”
Demand for recreational cannabis could be up to 10 times higher than the demand from medical use customers in Illinois now, according to estimates by McCloud and Chris Stone, senior policy advisor for Ascend Illinois, a cannabis company that owns dispensaries and cultivation centers in the state, who spoke to St. Louis Public Radio.
Orens told the radio station that access to the product will be more important to an emerging cannabis marketplace than initial supply issues, which will likely be temporary.
“The larger question is, ‘Are there enough dispensaries, and is there enough access to this product?’ If there is not, people will stay with their pre-existing illicit relationships of how they obtain cannabis products now,” Orens said in St. Louis Public Radio’s interview.
Illinois Supply and Provisions is planning to open a second location in the metro-east that will serve only recreational weed customers, according to McCloud. He said Fairview Heights is an area the company is looking at, but as of Dec. 23, it was not ready to disclose an address.
