Marijuana Business Magazine March 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | March 2020 36 IndustryDevelopments | International & State Illinois Recreational marijuana stores in Illinois sold almost $40 million worth of product during the state’s first month of legal sales. Illinois’ adult-use stores sold more than 970,000 products totaling more than $30.6 million to residents and $8.6 million to out-of-state visitors in January, according to the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. More than a third of the month’s total sales occurred in the first five days of legal sales. In other news, the Springfield City Council approved Illinois Supply and Provisions to open the first social consumption marijuana establishment in the state. Louisiana Ilera Healthcare, a medical marijuana grower in Louisiana, plans to sell CBD products nationwide. A contractor for Baton Rouge-based Southern University, Ilera also will sell the over-the-counter CBD products at all but one medical marijuana dispensary in Louisiana. In 2018, Ilera acquired the majority of the company that Southern initially selected as its contractor after that firm made little progress. The company is growing 2,300 plants. Maine The state’s Office of Marijuana Policy is recommending cannabis business owners’ trade secrets and other proprietary information be kept out of public records. Regulators believe, for example, that proprietary information such as marijuana edibles recipes should not be available to competitors. Supporters of the exemption maintain the measure would prevent a huge wave of public records requests from marijuana businesses seeking competitors’ information. Recreational marijuana sales are expected to begin this spring in Maine. Massachusetts The oversight of payments that Massachusetts marijuana companies make to the municipalities in which they do business would be tightened under a bill approved by the state House of Representatives. The law would give the state’s Cannabis Control Commission the power to review, regulate and enforce “host community agreements.” Some local officials have used the contracts to demand more money than is allowed under state law, according to critics. Currently, fees must be related to the costs imposed on the city or town by the operation of the marijuana company and can’t amount to more than 3% of the firm’s gross sales of the business.