MARIJUANA MATH

The numbers still aren’t adding up for Illinois’ fl edgling medical marijuana industry, once seen by many as a license to print money. Consider startup costs that can never be recouped given the current trajectory of the pilot program, which will expire in 2018 unless Gov. Bruce Rauner signs a bill extending it for four years. Between application fees and permit fees, would-be growers have to pay $225,000 to the state in the fi rst year, plus demonstrate they have $500,000 in liquid assets, plus post a $2 million surety bond before they can start building cultivation centers that one budding entrepreneur has estimated can cost as much as $10 million apiece. Dispensaries have to pay a $5,000 nonrefundable application fee, plus a $30,000 permit fee for the fi rst year, plus demonstrate they have $400,000 in liquid assets plus post a $50,000 surety bond. If every person who now has the state’s blessing to buy legal pot picked up the maximum amount of fi ve ounces per month, which no one anticipates, at $280 per ounce, the industry would generate $38.6 million per year, not nearly enough to sustain the 18 cultivation centers licensed so far, not to mention dispensaries. As of May 6, just 2,300 people had permission to buy legal pot, and it isn’t hard to see why. The list of conditions that can be legally treated with marijuana is short and the hurdles high – after you pay a doctor to recommend pot, you have to pay a $100 nonrefundable application fee to the state, plus another $50 to get fi ngerprinted, and then you have to renew your card every year for $100. Or you can buy weed on the black market, which will be less risky than ever thanks to a bill now on Rauner’s desk that reduces the penalties to $125 for possession of a half-ounce, with records of offenses automatically expunged after six months. Much simpler, really, than going through the rigamarole of legal reefer.