Legal cannabis shortages in Illinois are expected to last six months to a year or more, industry members warn, due to a lack of production capacity in the state.
The long lines, product shortages and store closures seen since the state authorized legal sales starting on New Year’s Day are not unusual for newly legal markets. But the tight market is expected to continue longer than in other states in part because Illinois has only 21 cultivation warehouses, far fewer than in many other states with legal cannabis.
The limit on the number of growers is a result of existing medical marijuana growers maintaining that they could supply the market without any new cultivation licenses -- despite studies that predicted they could not meet the demand.
Shortages also stem from other factors, including the state’s previously small but rapidly growing medical market, the limited number of stores and having just six months to prepare.
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