The Cole Memo

In this episode, I speak with a fellow cannabis consumer. We each share our top 5 Illinois cannabis-related stories from the year of 2023.

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Links mentioned

• https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-house-passes-recreational-marijuana-bill/
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/08/legal-weed-states/71500355007/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/15jqprk/did_you_know_that_natures_grace_and_wellness_is/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/11wgkr4/new_customerfriendly_legal_recreational_cannabis/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/12nta3e/5_state_public_health_workers_kept_yearbook_that/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/12ocqzo/break_time_idph/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/13fjjh1/hempbased_cannabis_overdoses_at_chicago_high/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ILTrees/comments/13l50ta/licensed_cannabis_transporters_say_illegal/
• https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2023/12/10/thc-seltzers-liquor-stores
• https://illinoisnewsjoint.com/cannabis-omnibus-fails-3-items-escape/ 
• https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/illinois-state-troopers-seize-a-record-5k-pounds-of-cannabis-during-traffic-stop/3234761/?amp=1
• https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/mississippi-man-arrested-after-illinois-sheriffs-deputies-find-nearly-83-pounds-of-marijuana-during-traffic/article_534de4da-dd64-11ed-a3d7-0bd5cea4f23d.html
• https://www.chicagotribune.com/marijuana/illinois/ct-illinois-marijuana-commission-vs-agency-20230509-nqjixsmowbcdbdawvmmlqhsrci-story.html 
• https://thecolememo.com/2023/12/09/recap-fireside-chat-with-cbai-and-croo/
• https://illinoisnewsjoint.com/idfpr-permanently-authorizes-medical-cannabis-curbside-pickup/
• https://norml.org/laws/illinois-penalties/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU8O0Ahh4mY&t=1534s
• https://thecolememo.com/2023/12/09/exclusive-outdoor-cultivation-of-cannabis-in-illinois/
• https://www.marijuanaventure.com/scaling-the-family-farm/
• https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2023/12/the-emerging-cannabis-market-in-illinois-prices-taxes-and-supply-constraints.html

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

welcome welcome welcome to the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston each episode is available in audio and video trans video and transcript formats to access your preferred format simply check the episode description you’re that you’re currently listening to you’ll find a link that will direct you to my website where you can find the transcript and you can discover the platforms offering this episode in audio or video if you’re having trouble locating the episode description on your chosen platform take note of the episode number and visit the col mo.com there you can easily locate the corresponding episode and access the audio video and transcripts Additionally you might find any links that we reference during the show we have at least 10 today I think allowing you to further explore the topics that were discussed if you’re not tuning in Via patreon it’s worth noting that you’re hearing this episode after our patrons if you’d like to become a patron and support the show visit the memo.com patreon it’s a fantastic way to support the show one of the most valuable ways to support the show is entirely free simply subscribe to or follow the show share it with your friends all that stuff your engagement and support means the world to me today is December 30th 2023 and I’m joined by my good friend Phil with a very relevant background folks if you’re not watching the video version of the podcast please do Phil how’s it going good how you doing pretty good pretty good I believe I believe this background is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in Illinois isn’t it I think so I think so from what I hear yeah it’s funny I was just working on making a video version of that report to release to the public um but uh maybe we’ll talk about that later that story is actually that story My Own Story actually made the cut for honorable mention for me so um it was it was one of my top top five a that’s so sweet of you um so anyways uh yeah so folks if you didn’t get the uh hint there we have a top five we’re doing our top stories from 2023 it’s something that Phil and I did last year and I just got to think and I was like that’d be really fun to do again this year um it’s crazy how quick this year went by honestly looking through some of these stories you know I forget what we’ve been through Phil gosh we’ve been through the trenches it feels like so much so much and so little that’s right that’s right and I’d like to if we can I want to cue this up for you because I didn’t tell you this uh maybe come up with a prediction to close on what you know what do you think your prediction is for 20124 it could be anything that’s a very vague question it could you know but I just want to hear what you think we might be talking about next year around this time of year like oh can you imagine that that happened um so maybe cue that up but um crack and open a drink got myself a a hemp beverage because it was the year of the hemp beverage let us not forget that um maybe we’ll have a little bit of a discussion later I saw that it made it to your top five but where do you want to start Phil do you have uh you want to start at I guess probably our fifth Story and work our way up to our favorite maybe or something like that or how do you want to do this I don’t think I I don’t think I really ordered them I didn’t really eat so I’m I would be gunning from the hip on picking what my favorites are but you know where do you want to start today let me uh well we could start with my personal favorite sure uh which is the um story about the employees at the Department of Public Health making fun of medical patient applications yes yeah let’s pull that up here can you mind folks that may have missed this story while I pull it up like what the hell happened here they kept like in the like the cafeteria the break room whatever at the Department of Public Health I guess they or the canab I don’t know how this is all separated but it seemed like it would have been like a cannabis specific area that those employees are in they kept some book that had like photos that they would like write demeaning things under yeah like a like a Mean Girls burn book essentially yes thank you yeah so the the headline is five state public health workers kept yearbook that mocked photos of medical marijuana applicants IG report says so um the what is the IG I don’t even know Inspector General thank you um five state public health employees maintained a yearbook that included photos of applicants mocking with mocking ctions such as happy holidays which is something we say all the [ __ ] time and uh why the long face other things um dick yeah were found in this Phil I don’t want to say it for you why did this story stand out to you is just crazy because it just sucks yeah and uh the state likes to act like they have like respect for medical patients and stuff like that but I think this is just like you know I mean the state doesn’t give a [ __ ] about cannabis consumers in general and they really don’t care about medical patients they don’t care about the medical aspects of the program you know that’s why it’s never been expanded and then just to have them sitting around making fun of people’s pictures it’s just like guys yeah and I think that just sucks right and I think I said this when when we first started talking about this like when it first broke but what people have to realize that really like puts the icing on the cake at least for me on this is is that it’s the medical cannabis program and that these people you know certainly the program was opened up within the last few years so that more people can easily get a card but the point that I’m trying to make is when you make comments like why the long face well maybe because this person has like a really serious condition you know well or it can be minors like kids kids can get medical cannabis cards true um people with cancer yeah yeah um but apparently uh miles Willingham which was the person who apparently was uh kind of like the CH the top dog at the uh Illinois Department of Health um he said that the yearbook was created because people sent in quote ridiculous photos with their medical cannabis applications so pretty crazy story there yeah I am what I smoke was another comment I think we ended up looking into the actual IG report to see the full you know breakdown I remember that being I I feel like I used this example when we talked about it uh like I worked at like a 1hour photo place like 20 years ago in high school and it was like a like I think it was I don’t know if it was actually a legal or if they just gave you the impression like you could be like charged something if you were like to take because you would look through people’s pictures to Quality check them when they came out of a printer like if there was something in there like you know something stupid or you know potentially someone naked or something if you were to show that to anyone else like you know you were going to get in like big trouble you know it was just like you don’t right like you’re looking at this that’s it you put it in the envelope and out they go so it’s just crazy to me that people who work in like government who have a much more serious job than that can’t take it seriously right people that literally should probably be complying with like Hippa standards or something I don’t know you got to imagine that there’s something more than an hour photo development store like it sound like you have a stronger policy on that than well I think we like we looked at too like the people were just like didn’t they still work for the state like they weren’t like permanently fired or anything they were just like reprimanded yeah I think I don’t recall exactly but I know that Miles was let go but I don’t remember anybody else oh okay being let go yeah which is you know a bummer because because I had actually queued up miles to come up on the show he said he was a big fan of the show so maybe he’s listening right now hey he made the top top 10 stories hey hey he did he did well uh you want to see one of my favorite stories of this year because I think we just jokingly said it one time Phil like we said one time we asked why doesn’t idfpr just permanently authorize medical cannabis curbside pickup and and then they did that this month kind of crazy instead of just randomly doing it every like six months wasn’t it yeah but you also have to wonder think about the push like I got involved in where we’re like trying to make a legislative like a bill and it’s like what the [ __ ] were we doing if you could have done this the whole time well I think isn’t part of the like not wanting to do it that like medical licenses are are only you know like there’s no social Equity medical licenses so it’s like if you’re giving them curbside pickup you know it’s like what’s next you’re going to allow them to do full drive-throughs I mean like yeah is that only for medical seems like it but yeah I mean I I think that’s your point there is that the Optics of it because when we asked we attended that uh meeting you and I with the croo and cbai uh I was one of the people that asked you know this this was just codified permanently what else can we just codify and uh oh like delivery yeah right and it sounded like there were some things that could be codified and some things that can’t and the line was very unclear um but it really does just make you wonder like what can they just do and and is there fear in doing something like that a Optics like you just said or B are they worried that there’s going to be like some lawsuit cuz somebody’s like well you just came up with a a rule that’s not even in the law you know what I mean or something like that I don’t know it’s just such an interesting thought for me and the fact that we were just like stonily going like well why don’t they just make this permanent and then they just [ __ ] did it it was like okay they can do that well yeah and yeah it’s like so because it’s I remember Aaron Johnson talking about it it was like something about the language of how cannabis sales happen like like the the reason why they can authorize the curb side thing is because like the sale is still happening in the building or something yeah is you like go get the money you bring the product out but it’s like they couldn’t do that for delivery because the sale wouldn’t technically be like happening in the building yeah like on property like that I remember her explaining it like that that the only note I have and this is from a report I published folks is Aaron explained that the statute that allowed idfpr to codify curbside um that the statute allowed them to do that apparently she said that they tried to change as much as they can via the rul making process but there is a limited scope of what they can change she said she doesn’t see a pathway forward for home delivery via rule she also seemed to indicate that she doesn’t feel it is a good idea to try to accomplish this via rule which is interesting to me like that’s the part where I wonder like it’s not a good idea does that mean does that mean like lawsuits or like what does that mean well I think she was saying like like that would be like stepping on like the legislature’s toes or something like that right and that’s that’s what I wonder which would maybe this can take us to I don’t mean to just jump to my other favorite story I’ll let you go after this but I feel like it just relat Ates this conversation right here makes me wonder what would the end result be of my next favorite story commission versus agency because that’s not going away um and like if we get an agency or if we get a commission can they just make things up off does that take that away from the legislature and like put that Authority in their hands or yeah I think that is the goal yeah I just wonder about that you would have that like you would give them that power you know yeah and The Optimist in me wants to go crazy and be like wouldn’t that be the solution to all of our problems everything that they say right but it’s like for me I I feel like if a commission or an agency got set up it would not as we’ve seen with all other things have a consumer Focus no not unless there was like a consumer on it right and that’s not going to happen you would think not no yeah so I don’t know that’s my whole thing with commission versus agency that actually we got a little bit of light on this a little bit more information that that I wasn’t aware of um I I I mentioned it in my report I did think it was notable to to hear Aaron Johnson oh sorry she brought up an interesting point that I was previously unaware of namely that it’s a violation of the law for agencies to exchange information because I’ve always been asking you and and my audience like so this whole commission and agency idea like they’re acting like they don’t know all everybody’s emails like if you’ve got to work with all of these agencies like I could create a spreadsheet with like a contact list of people you need to reach out for for certain things but that just added a whole other layer of complexity to the subject for me if it’s illegal for agencies to share information like okay maybe I guess there is like justification for putting this all Under One Roof you know cuz I’m just like you can’t call each other like we have cell phones we have email like what do you yeah that seems insane there must be some reason for that but I don’t know what that would be yeah I’ll have to I really feel like what she just mentioned what I just mentioned that she mentioned is is the root of this push you know of course there’s this debate between commission and agency but but bottom line is it sounds like like well it’s also just how other things are regulated right like there’s a Liquor Commission there’s a gaming commission yeah they’re gonna like make cannabis this big regulated thing it should have its own commission right but it’s interesting to see that that that does not seem to be the push at least from the government and from the social Equity candidates they seem to be pushing for agency while maybe they’ve changed their stance but I’m pretty sure cbai was all gung-ho about commission well wasn’t it just about how much um Public Access like you have to the meetings yeah yeah I think the the the commission would have more public like more access from what I understand I mean if you look at States like Massachusetts they [ __ ] live stream their commissioner meetings right which would be lit could you imagine that which I think I think even though they’re live streamed they still do like crazy [ __ ] sometimes oh yeah you read about it for sure and that that’s another thought I just wanted to I wonder if the the hesitance to go towards commission is what you see in in Massachusetts I mean that’s not all rainbows and butterflies over there no it’s just a different way of organizing things right like people would still be influencing the process yeah and there’s still plenty of drama like I think the head commissioner just got like Ed did and I don’t even know I don’t know not even going to try to start learning all the the nuances to Massachusetts cannabis politics but yeah interesting stuff over there so yeah I just wanted to I felt like those pretty well related to each other you know it’s like the permanent curb side it’s like okay what does the body have authority to do well apparently not much so we’re having this debate about commission and agency that have been that has been punted I’m sure it’s going to come back um with what we’ve heard from not only the cro themselves but many other applicants you know like AR they they get back really busy in like March and April don’t they yeah last few months right that’s what we learned well they like it starts in February right when they like do all their work in like or maybe it’s April and May something like that so anyways what’s your uh what’s your next story Phil well I’ll combine two of them and say Minnesota and Ohio going wreck oh yeah and and having uh more liberal laws than we do tell tell us what you mean by that I don’t specifically remember yeah because I haven’t looked it up recently but just that their possession limits are higher MH um and I believe they both have hom growth for all right which those would be the two main things I care about but I also think well I don’t know if they’ve hammered out licensing in Ohio but I know that the licenses in Minnesota are not capped I don’t exactly know what the structure is but yeah yeah the Ohio one was interesting because you predicted it when I texted you and it may have been based off something that you read I don’t know but uh cuz I it was totally I was not expecting it and then it became a real thing um when I texted you about it I was like whoa look at Ohio’s awesome cannabis legislation and you were like yeah but sounds like homeg grow could be challenged and those [ __ ] tried to take that away out of Ohio they talked about it I don’t think they ever could have gotten it because you have to it’s like Michigan I think where if you pass a ballot initiative you need like a super majority so you have to get like 2/3 to go along with that the fact that it was even talked about I mean this isn’t the first time that Ohio has had a debate about homow you remember that old like Joe Rogan clip I made where they were this had to have been from years ago and they were talking about if it’s legal then you should be able to grow it you know blah blah blah um oh was that about their first ballot initiative like that was a while ago right but it’s crazy to think that this has been I just remember that because uh like they like people didn’t come out to support it because it was like a monopolistic right like Illinois style like cartel licensing um but I just remember one of the big investors and one of those weed companies was one of the brothers one of the leche brothers from 98 Degrees oh yeah yeah like Newly Weds with Jessica Simpson I know that just sticks out in my mind that’s funny um another honorable mention story for me well really quick to your point yeah I think that was the main point of the video that I saw about Ohio was that yeah it was going to only license like a few people like literally creating a monopoly way worse than I say way worse than Illinois but it’s just on batom par honestly I mean they have Michigan right on their board order so and really quick what was that you told me the other day I almost thought about tweeting it because I do think it’s a big deal what is they’re going to be a dispensary in Michigan that’s only like an hour away from the city limits of Chicago or something I mean from like yeah there’s a because New Buffalo is right on the border like Michigan City is on the Indiana side yeah you know as you wouldn’t think from the name but right New Buffalo is like the first city on the Michigan side but they had an allowed dispensaries uh I think they were like they opted out at the beginning but they changed that a little while ago and so now there’s there’s one that opened a while ago um but there’s a couple larger operators like one herb and then I think jars is opening one there but if you look from like from my house down like way on the south side of the city New Buffalo is an hour from my house like there aren’t that many dispensaries within an hour of my house in Chicago yeah especially not with those [ __ ] prices I mean there’s more dispensaries in this area than there are like down state I should say but like you know if I if I was out of weed today and I had to go somewhere to get weed there’s now an option that you know potentially 55 minutes from my house yeah and it’s going to be a third the price of the St you know like they still have like a border tax kind of over in Michigan but it’s still better than here yeah that’s so crazy that is so crazy yeah Michigan I’ll tell you they are just continuously showing us how it’s done even though that is exactly the opposite that our governor government would tell you um including our governor he’s actually I think used Michigan as an example maybe I’m wrong with that um I thought I thought it was interesting because you’ll always see on like the Illinois trees Reddit you’ll see people say like who’s open on Christmas Day and people will be like no one’s open go home and I don’t know if people I I think potentially a lot of them are closed here um but there were a number of dispensaries that were like promoting themselves as open on Christmas Day in Michigan I just think the competition is so Fierce like you can’t you know they’re not going to leave out Christmas Day entirely right right did and please tell the story you got a delivery on Christmas Day and not from Santa Claus yeah I was sitting there and I ordered uh like 15 of these distillate darts and with delivery it came out to like $130 folks for 15 grams of distillate folks that would have cost like ,000 just for the distillate I don’t even know what we’re going to charge for delivery fees if that becomes a thing but you can bet you’re going to get milked for that too I mean I yeah I don’t know how they would do that here I mean if it was third parties they probably charge right but um over there it’s usually if you order over a certain amount it’s free delivery wow and this is not like a this is like a small town like 15 minutes outside Flint this is not like a builtup this is not like Detroit or something that’s just crazy I want to get back to what our government has said well it’s crazy that in a city like Chicago you can’t do that right you can’t get weed delivered in Chicago right but you can get in like rural middle of nowhere Michigan you can get weed delivered it’s crazy it’s crazy and I don’t know I guess I do want to just open up this bottle just briefly um I think it’s crazy that uh States like Michigan are constantly pointed to as being a failure in fact um our our cannabis regulation oversight officer Aaron Johnson at the cbai meeting um referenced Michigan’s cannabis market during her uh her fireside chat and she described it as a struggling Market uh she talked about hearing discussions at the Cannabis Regulators conference she went to about cannabis operators facing receivership and enduring significant price compression due to their regulatory framework and Aaron mentioned that her office works every day to ensure that these types of things do not occur in Illinois I love that because that’s almost an exact quote I didn’t write it as a quote because I I jotted it down or whatever but she literally said said our office comes in every day to ensure that these types of things do not happen and by these types of things I heard her I just heard her reference receivership and price compression in other words we have to prevent people from going out of business we have to prevent prices from falling I don’t know it’ll be interesting because you would think even like regardless of their intentions like someone’s going to go out of business in Illinois eventually yeah like a lot like these new dispensaries like that are like kind of opening up near each other they’re all selling the same stuff like right the price compression is hitting them the most it’s just I don’t know it’s interesting or you see like a new craft grower come out charging like 70 bucks an eighth before tax like is that do they have to charge that if they’re not able to sell all those at that price are they like screwed right like they’re a big investment yeah I just think it’s crazy to hear it’s it’s not only her that has talked about price compression JB pritzker did in his speech at Ivy Hall saying that if you issue so many licenses that people constantly talk about in the media that if if we just issued more licenses things would be better and he said well but if you do that the price would fall to where people can’t make money and then people get edged out and so applicants like the folks that started iy Hall would never be able to start it’s just like but we really it’s just crazy cuz could you I was thinking about this last night Phil and then we’ll we’ll move on could you imagine going to a store and being like this Coca-Cola is too cheap how are they ever going to make money off this or the gas it’s too cheap like I’m as a consumer I don’t I just wonder I just wonder who they’re talking about in Michigan who’s like really struggling like I think if you’re really struggling over over there you’re just not doing it right yeah yeah like the the shops I go to that you know I try to go to places that are like vertically integrated single location dispensaries usually that have their grows in the same place I mean what better way to cut all your costs and be able to sell great ounces of weed for you know slightly under a hundred bucks yeah and like you said like a sustainable business model for them they’re busy as [ __ ] yeah and I don’t know about you but when you talk to them as you seem to indicate so correct me if I’m wrong but when I talk to them I get the impression they acknowledge no it’s not easy to function in this business but they choose this regulatory framework over ours any day of the week because I’ve explained to them they would not be open so would you rather not be open or have to compete like that’s your choices you know and they’re like hey I’d like to compete I want to be in the business that’s what I’ve heard and if yeah like you just have to grow good weed and sell it for a competitive price yeah so I don’t know it’s it’s interesting how again it doesn’t seem like high prices are necessarily like a flaw they’re not seen as a flaw in Illinois cannabis industry at least from The Operators perspective it’s seen as a feature like hey we can charge higher prices here you know well yeah and it’s on consumers too people in the state are just at least the people who use the regulated market in the state are just willing to pay just crazy prices for weed yeah so what’s what’s your next story I I can’t remember who went last I think I went last okay but I should probably be keeping better track of this I can uh I should too I will I will go next um I like this one because out of the the glamour or whatever however you describe um the political sessions I’ll just use the description the Illinois nois news joint used after weeks of wrangling on which items to exclude the Cannabis Omnibus could not be agreed upon and was not brought up for a vote today essentially killing all included items three items from the Omnibus though escaped into the state budget the three cannabis items in the budget that should pass just after midnight Midnight and did pass from what I understand uh the state comproller shall direct the state treasurer to transfer the sum of $40,000 from the compassionate use of medical cannabis funds 40 million Cole 40 million 40 million thank you 40 million folks learn your numbers okay so uh 40 million from the compassionate use of Medical Care cannabis fund to the Cannabis Business Development Fund Phil if folks aren’t understanding why I’m putting so much emphasis into reading this why this is so crazy break it down if you can uh that was that’s the money that all the medical cannabis patients have paid for their Med cards but there was like a surplus because those patient fees were only meant to cover the cost of running the program which they like didn’t know how much it was going to cost to run the program so that was just sitting there in an account and Bob Morgan for a long time had proposed or talked about um refunding that to like if you had bought anything from a dispensary in the last six months they were going to refund you but just divide up that total amount among all the active medical candidas patients but then instead they decided to steal that from the med patients and give it to uh social Equity startup dispensaries that Med patients can’t shop at because they’re all wreck right right so yeah no you just you just beautifully broke down exactly um it’s all very Illinois yes very Illinois and I’m looking especially especially the part where the med patients are paying for dispensaries that they can’t shop at yeah I’m looking to see he might have taken it down I was going to see if I could find the video one of the First videos Bob ever actually made about this exact subject he was on the floor and he was talking about uh giving a refund see if we can’t find that just for giggles and grins but it’s something that he’s talked about several times um I did just find one post that he made about it but let’s see if I can actually find the video yeah having trouble with the video but we’ll we’ll just post this just to put some put something behind what you just said and you can actually see a bill number I’m about to share for this proposal that he made which didn’t see the light of the day and who knows I mean this money has been transferred now so will it ever see the light of the day I don’t I don’t know um so let me make this more full screen for you here I guess I can’t that’s all right uh Bob Morgan is here saying all I believe it is time for Med patients to get a refund from the state when I helped create the medical cannabis program six years ago we used our best guess about how much it would cost to run the state program the state wasn’t supposed to make money from the medical cannabis program it was only supposed to cover costs for staff equipment and it but more money is coming in than is needed and uh the rest of his post basically says that this bill would make it so that um Illinois medical can AB patients could get a refund at the time I believe he was talking about like $250 per patient which uh would have been nice those were the covid stimulus days they’ve cut those fees like in half or something right over the years but um there’s still probably like more paid into it than actually it’s used to cover the program and it’s like is this now just like a funding source for social you know like yeah so at the to are are the card fees going to go up to help pay for these dispensaries right right are we gonna fund social equity on the backs of sick people as we’ve already done um yes which they already do with the sustained the high prices and The Limited licensing right um at the time there was 28 million but of course we just heard that 40 million would was transferred to that fund so you know since 2020 it jumped up to 40 um and again he says largely from per patient fees this would give at least 20 million back to you and that would result in $250 in your pocket so after all it is your money oh yeah he did say that after all it is your money um put that back up there um so yeah good good stuff here oh whoops that’s the after all it is your money so um folks keep your hold your representatives accountable this is our money let’s get it back um so yeah that was uh the reason I brought that story up now there were some other gyms in that story the fact that the operators got uh 28 removed from the state level so any cannabis establishment operating in the state of Illinois and licensed under crta um does not have to pay 28 they uncoupled that from our state tax deductions so big win I heard from what we heard for those operators um the last thing was some extension to adult use cannabis dispensing organizations to find a location within the BLS region they were awarded for um the whole thing that derailed this was a a conversation about a ban on Delta a which was led by the support of verono Cresco Labs Nature’s Grace and wellness and pharmacan uh according to reporting by Illinois news joint they played a significant role in the disagreement on the Omnibus between the Illinois House and Senate uh the proponents of the ban argued that delta8 is a dangerous synthetic drug and needed to be banned to protect children the supporters of the ban right and this this is interesting the supporters of the ban would not take less than a total ban in negotiations this created splits and Ill amongst some of the Coalition members and I would even say hemp Growers probably blew that up a little bit there’s a lot of farmers in the state that grow hemp for either consumption purposes now or uh for industrial purposes which you know some try to argue I think accurately that was the original intent of this you know measure but intent aside I don’t know do you want to talk about hemp hemp is that is that this time of the show this kind of ropes in two of my other top stories of the year one was that uh that Lou glunts beer distributor started carrying like THC beverages that’s why you see him in like Benes now MH in like the Chicago area I don’t know if that’s throughout the state yeah I think I think it is yeah but so phc drinks being in a place like Benny’s was one of my top stories but also uh as far as trying to like regulate those products like the licensed cannabis operators want that to not be a thing they all kept going back to the story of uh the high school kids that overdosed on the gummies they got right so that was my other that was my other one of my top stories yeah let’s for folks that missed that uh well for folks that missed that my computer’s Frozen hold on a second here hemp based cannabis overdoses at Chicago High School linked to Neighborhood smoke shop prompt calls for strict regulation I like this one I’m going to put optimize for video clip this is amazing because it’s only 25 seconds and it just really sets in how dramatic this the coverage was breaking tonight four people were shot this afternoon in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood it happened around 12:30 near the intersection this is the wrong report is the wrong report um my bad uh uh they were leading into that I was like wow yeah this is really they really did this they’ve really overblow that story yeah damn it did I seriously oh here we go here we go I found the the actual report I was looking for let’s let’s try that again here Fire official situ sh a at uplift Community High School where Chicago Fire officials have confirmed that five students are now at the hospital after eating Edibles from a dispensary we do know that four of them are listed in serious condition one of them right now in critical we’re still waiting to hear back from Chicago Police about just what happened here how those students got their hands on those Edibles and how it got inside of the school but back out here live we do know from Chicago Fire officials that five students are now at the hospital after eating Edibles one of them listed in critical how annoyed do you think the people at uh like mac strategies were that he said they got him from a dispensary oh yeah yeah I didn’t even think about that I don’t think I caught that the first couple times I saw that back when it was making the rounds yeah I’m sorry I think I actually found that was still not the report I was looking for I found it it’s 20 seconds long this if this is it I’m gonna this is my last try but I just really think this sets in just how dramatic it was breaking news now at uplift High School in the Uptown neighborhood on the North side we are told several students have been taken to the hospital after some type of Overdose we’re hearing one of those students is in serious to critical condition our CBS 2 reporter Mar prman is headed to that scene we’ll get a live as soon as she is able that kid looked like they smiling but I just like this report cuz it like it starts with the like the sirens like you know like it just like sounds like chaos is going on I don’t know if that’s one of the students I don’t know if this is just b-roll footage but that person looks just f look they’re smiling right there they’re in critical condition Cole yeah critical that’s funny I guess um yeah that was the report I was looking for so sorry I feel like I cut you off you were saying things about the the high schoolers and stuff oh no just that that’s like like you saw how much two different channels covering it like I don’t know it was all part of that whole push to get hemp regulated yeah that was the whole angle that was why I was like oh how annoyed do you think they were that he said dispensary cuz the whole thing was like oh these kids got it from a smoke shop yeah and I just it’s so interesting that that it’s very important I feel that people remember that that’s how this debate started in Illinois because it quickly changed all of the sudden the goal posts the goal posts shifted um so it was a conversation about public health safety and saving the children and then when the hemp operators came out and said yes we’re all for public health safety and saving the children um they were like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you’re you’re gonna dilute the pool buddy uh and they’ll always go back to no you can sell cannaboids just not intoxicating ones right just not the intoxicating ones and uh I just think it’s interesting to see I’m going to find the quote here uh 95% there we go uh this is a direct quote from the Cannabis regulation oversight officer she mentioned that if the federal government closes the loophole that quote 95% of our problems go away end quote this is another one I thought was interesting that she followed up on and this is you know I know people are talking about public health and safety and loss of profits and stuff but this is what I think is most important about this issue and I wish people were like in the pocket on this she mentioned that right now local law enforcement is reluctant to do anything due to him’s Federal legality and she mentioned people just like smoking it in the streets and whatever else and my thing is like isn’t that a win like if the police don’t know what to do and they’re not charging you with a cannabis related infraction like isn’t that ideal right especially when you consider that the first sentence of the crta is saying that police should focus on violent and property crime and nothing you know that cannabis should be legal well they’re also yeah like yeah how how do you enforce like Illinois has its own possession limits and stuff but right now you can go online and order like hemp products from another state that are way in excess of the limits on cannabis products yeah it’s yeah it’s like that’s a win yeah and the fact that the cops don’t know whether or not to enforce those types of things it’s like okay make it a big gray area so they don’t feel like they can enforce it right and and you’ve heard you heard uh I think you said you heard Von Bentley say something to the effect of this I heard Aaron and I think you heard her say this too too at the meeting they’ve the state has apparently reached out to the Attorney General’s office to quote see if there’s anything they can do I don’t know what that means well and I did see some story I think it was in Geneva Illinois there was like a smoke shop that got like two employees there got arrested for oh yeah you know selling weed essentially but I’m sure they were advertising it as like Farm Bill products at least stupid thing right you’d think so so I don’t know I like we’ve heard arguments as you told me yesterday there’s there is an operator out there that Pro it’s not that that they want this to be illegal per se they want one set of rules and I I guess I sort of get that perspective but my big thing again if I could just keep it in the pocket here it’s like what I’ve heard that this has resulted in is less people getting arrested for cannabis related infractions and to my I I just think that’s a win like I don’t know how you can and more people being able to start businesses right and that’s where the problem comes in I think for operators is that they were guaranteed this market share and social Equity is market share and so this this is a direct conflict well yeah and if there weren’t these like stupid caps and if there were actually cannabis businesses and shops like opening plentifully like you wouldn’t have this Market this like hemp Market exploding yeah yeah and I guess that’s where I will uh that that’s what I was wanting to say earlier is that you know we’ve complained for a while now about license limitations from a consumer’s perspective we’ve made the point that we think it limitations like these often lead to like a suboptimal experience for consumers with limited choices and higher prices um but I think this hemp industry you know so we’re coming at it from a consumer perspective this hemp hemp industry has successfully challenged and disrupted the licensing system that exists in Illinois like we couldn’t do that by just complaining about it you know like these [ __ ] just started selling weed so um yeah yeah I mean it’s it’s I mean like you just see it everywhere too like any like I was in a little storefront shop in pilson a couple weeks ago and there was just like jars of joints on the counter like a little liquor store Bodega type shop um so it’s like Illinois has gotten to the same place I think that New York is at in some senses I mean it’s not as like advertised but if you’re going into like any smoke shop small little independently own convenience shop like they’re probably selling farm bill products yeah and one thing I thought that was interesting you know people can consider it anecdotal but you did a pretty good I would like to think you you put your effort in to try to see these things in Michigan and you you were telling me you didn’t see these things in Michigan right well I was just looking like at I didn’t go into the smoke shots to like see what they were selling because I only saw a couple of them but they’re but like there’s not a bunch of stores like at the smoke shop it wasn’t like Delta 8 right I don’t even think I saw CBD advertised on their window yeah yeah so there’s a dispens like there’s just dispensaries all over and like the prices are so low why would you be buying your stuff at a gas station right with all of these arguments I always like to take it back to and I don’t I don’t I maybe this doesn’t resonate with people but I always like to I’ve got this like romantic idea of what the Cannabis movement used to be back in the day and uh I just wonder that if you would have went back and described what’s going on today to like somebody like Tommy Chong I like to use him as an example like hey man weed’s not going to be it’s funny it is kind of completely legal but if you just describe to him like you know you will be able to buy drinks with weed in it and you’ll be able to but but some people are going to take issue with that because then they can’t make money I just feel like somebody like Tommy trong would be like so what weed’s legal what the [ __ ] are you talking about you know yeah I feel like though uh I remember like you know long time ago looking up the prices of weed and Amsterdam when that was like oh if you go to Amsterdam you can buy weed in a coffee shop and just being like Oh well that’s like not that different from what I P yeah made it a little less exciting yeah I don’t know I just it’s crazy to me that we live in a world where we have basically federally legal weed and some people are saying we need to stop that like it’s just it’s crazy and when they bring up intent this is where I will at least put a cap on this conversation because intent is always comes up caps Cole no caps no caps right that’s the problem um when people talk about the legislative intent of the farm bill I feel like they think that like Mitch McConnell like sat down like under Candlelite and wrote the farm bill and it’s like do you guys know how well it’s like it acts like there’s other legislation out there that didn’t like that didn’t come into being and like do something like 401ks like how that be became like the main retirement vehicle for like the whole country I don’t think that was like its intention at the time yeah like I think it started as a much smaller like little thing but you know I don’t know if that’s a great example but there’s other things I’m sure that have passed that it wasn’t the true intention but then like just became how it went because they were like oh this is working out the farm Bill’s working out yeah and I’ll ad it seems like that should be how they just legalize weed right yes yes absolutely box Brown actually recently made that point in one of his Twitter things it’s like just do what you did with with hemp to weed take it off of the Controlled Substances Act which is what that’s what it did like how is that not a win you know um I don’t know though people just I I think what it comes down to there’s another facet of this that people think that hemp equals synthetic or not natural and it just people haven’t been able to get over that hump I I truly believe that plays into this conversation because people think that these are fake products you know oh it’s got It’s got uh thca in it what is that fake and it’s like some people don’t realize that we’ve been smoking thca for years you know well some it is fake right like a tho is not a real thing Fair yeah right but a but a delta8 is that occurs naturally just not in like a giant amount yeah and my whole thing is I just you don’t have to consume Delta that’s what I think is weird about some of the the way the people approach this they’re like I would never use Delta 8 I don’t know anybody that uses Delta 8 and it’s like who’s still doing Delta eight all the stuff I see is Delta 9 the Del this Delta 8 conversation just seems like everyone got on this debate and then the market actually moved past that they’re still talking about Delta 8 I know it’s so crazy you never hear any talk about thca or Delta 9 and I think it’s because as Charlie backel said on my show it is a truly identical product there’s nothing you can there’s no bones about it you know um so so yeah interesting well so you just brought up the worker or the uh the high schoolers and stuff yeah that was a good conversation there that was good stuff um I’ve got two knockout two with one stone um the largest seizure of cannabis in Illinois State Police history actually happened this year where was that three three years after cannabis was legal realized it was in Henry County and it actually does look like a pretty large amount of cannabis I mean I know that you always call me on that rightfully so as you should um because large amounts of cannabis to us uh are are usually small amount or gigantic amounts to others you know um that’s my way of saying I don’t think there’s ever such a thing as too much cannabis there’s no such thing uh yeah this story is Illinois state troopers recently arrested two men for allegedly trafficking more than 5,000 pounds of cannabis and what police said was one of the largest seizures in the agency’s history that is a [Laughter] lot so uh I I don’t know I don’t know if you could successfully argue that’s personal use yeah you should see this picture that I’m displaying right now it’s a uh bus a 2,000 Provost bus alongside Interstate 80 and uh the boxes stacked alongside I mean dude they had to have had this [ __ ] bus packed to the brim look at this this is insane um and ISP K9 was called to the scene and alerted to the odor of Narcotics prompting Troopers to search the bus numerous packages of go ahead I always think because when you see it was it in like bags I mean we’ll have I don’t yeah this is the only picture they produced I just yeah it’s got a smell right oh it’s got to that much well I mean think about it Illinois dispensaries sell or smell uh and and that’s all supposed to be prepackaged product in odor prooof contain like vacuum sealed bags of weed do those smell I don’t know if I’ve ever been around like I think a lot of them bags of vacuum sealed weed I would assume so because it’s just plastic right right and what I’ve heard there’s like I swear it’s like odor it’s like the study of smell um you know you can do that and you can layer it up you can pla really layer it up you know but in terms of vacuum sealing it let’s say you vacum seal it like five times it’s not going to smell for a while but it will smell right yeah yeah you know well because the only way I found like mason jars are a great way to yeah contain smell MH really the only thing I can think that I keep eaing that prevents but you know you can pack 5,000 lounds of weed and Mason jars right right so that was pretty crazy like I said though gonna get two bird stoned with this one because there’s another article that I actually recently shared I didn’t even realize it was from this year if you would have asked me it would have been from years past uh but another bust that happened and the picture is just too too too good um Illinois sheriff’s deputies find nearly 83 pounds of marijuana during traffic stop here are the uh people that seized that they look like they broke into some of the products you look at the look on their face they look really happy um it’s just me making a stupid joke but yeah you can see there’s pretty big vacuum sealed bags this this looks like the vacuum seals you would like package uh clothing in like if you’re trying to like what is that called when you like try to store a bunch of clothing or like blankets and stuff um I don’t know that’s what that looks like to me this type of bag uh then you got Edibles and it looks like maybe pre-rolled joints some syrup I believe yeah that’s some other kind of drug yeah so whenever I see those like big bus and then they’re caught with like an additional kind of drug and I was just like ah well ruining the story it actually does say 30 bottles of THC syrup 40 Vape P so I don’t know if these are the Vape these look like pre-rolls but they might be the Vape pins but then there’s also this stuff over here that look like like something you know that so um let’s see were there any other drugs it is pretty funny I might have been thinking of a different story this is hilarious he was charged with manufacturing delivery of less than 5,000 grams trafficking in less than 5,000 grams uh the police department wants to remind the public that you can only have five grams 30 grams of cannabis flour five grams of cannabis concentrate 500 milligrams of infused products I just think it’s funny he had a little bit less than 5,000 they’re like just by the way you could only have 30 um interesting limits are just crazy they really are they’re so low they are very low um and especially for your out of Staters and just the an my thing is like what is the answer to you exceeding that limit well it seems like pretty serious criminal fines you know well there was that case recently what case um I posted about it it was um some guy was caught growing like less than a 100 plants I think but he had like it was like over five it was like between 500 and a th000 GRS he was charged with but then he just ended up getting like probation I think it was also implied in the story that he was a sex offender so I’m seems like he has a criminal history I don’t know I was just sometimes you’ll see just people get like some light sentence like that it’s like well apparently you if you get a good enough lawyer in Illinois you know you can get off with quite a bit Yeah Yeah and maybe that’s a key factor to mention from what Aaron Johnson did mention at our that hearing we went to or fireside chat she said something to the effect and I’m going to butcher it but I never thought about it that way until she said it that way she said there are like something like 70 different Court jurisdictions across the state of Illinois or 70 different how did she say that it like there are like 70 different criminal justice systems thank you that’s what she said yep and I was like yeah that’s a very well uh a good way of putting it because Evan Bruno has described that how you know there’s been a ruling in some counties where odor prooof odor prooof you know that container language cannot be used against you but in most of Illinois it still is and can be used against you you know um very very interesting so well yeah and there was like in some small town in Illinois this ear at the beginning of this year there was that raid on some guy’s house over like nine plants and I don’t know if they knew how big it was but like I somehow think that in the city of Chicago your home is not being raided by SWAT for nine plants right right I just the fact yeah maybe there’s more to that story that I’m not aware of but the fact that they’re raiding your house at all for just cannabis plants like it really I think it was just for the plants like they said afterward they found a pipe bomb which someone in the comments I think said watch it was just like extract like extraction equipment that’s funny could be yeah could just be something related to producing cannabis products yeah really awful homemade bong right that’s an interesting one yeah uh but like I say just the fat to hear that even the police were involved I don’t know I just get I just well and in the story I would be interested to know more about the case because in the story the guy was like quoted as saying to his like wife or girlfriend like oh don’t worry honey they’re just here to see the plants so that would make me think he had a med card right yeah yeah or or wasn’t aware of the loss yeah or yeah was not aware that there is pretty strict uh plant counts on these things you know so um I am just you posted something about um it being legal to hang things from your rearview mirrror oh yeah now I was like oh you should get like a decorative hemp plant I’ll have to tell house hemp that that’s a freaking do decorative hanging hemp hemp plants for Illinois cars yeah and they should be a flower so that people can’t use the smell of cannabis to uh it’s just my hemp it’s my hemp uh air freshener yeah exactly um that is that is amazing I’m gonna speaking of that I’ll I’ll be having uh the Chicago Tribune on to talk about some of the other things that are changing in the next year with regard to laws there is another cannabis law I guess and like if you’re under Court supervision or probation the judge cannot stipulate that you’re not allowed to use cannabis as a result of that Court supervision ohes alcohol which I thought was interesting like yeah people should be able to drink and smoke if they’re well some people I mean some people are like medically dependent on alcohol so like saying they can’t drink on probation could be like a death sentence technically yeah didn’t even think about that unfortunate but yeah well that’s why people go to detox centers is like your I don’t know exactly what happens to their body but it can like shut down essentially yeah no straight up straight up um so this clip I’m about to play is uh super interesting and it and it underscores a point that I feel I’ve been trying to make uh on this show but on the chinois podcast my whole involvement in this in this realm uh which is that if cannabis is legal why are arrests continuing this is a this is something I actually heard I was just on the on the road I heard cannabis cannabis I turned up my radio and this was a show that I heard um and we’ll have a link to this full episode but this moment from this show I thought was really interesting and I don’t know that I’ve actually gotten the chance to we’ve like texted about this Phil but I’ve not gotten the chance to talk about this so let’s take a look at this clip sound only but by the way folks um yeah we we were interest actually we got interested in that we were interested in generally but the tribute depending on the demographic but a lot of people are still turning to that illegal Market to obtain their cannabis right that’s correct um yeah we we were interest actually we got interested in that we were interested in generally but the Tribune did a nice story a couple years back um that their their angle on this was that the arrests in Chicago were occurring in places where there weren’t dispensaries and uh so we took another look at that again we updated that information and found that that’s still the case and that suggests that one reason that people turn to the illegal Market is that it’s it’s just uh more convenient for them they don’t have a dispensary near where they live and unfortunately at least is true in Chicago um the lack of dispensaries happens to be in neighborhoods that are uh primar ethnic minorities in poorer neighborhoods so um uh that’s still a concerning issue and one of the criticisms of Illinois’s uh Tax Act the Cannabis Tax Act is that um the taxes are so high that cannabis is more expensive to get in a dispensary even if you have one convenient to you and so it’s actually just cheaper to go and buy it from your local dealer who you may have been buying it from for years and so we found that those are uh several of the reasons that people continue to buy illegally convenience price and having a trusted dealer that they’ve used for a long time is there a difference in I mean do we know if there’s a diff so one of the things I wanted to make sure that was played that I think I must have skipped over is the difference in arrest numbers um oh I’m just going to play this real quick and then I want to hear uh your thoughts because it’s important to play the numbers because they have changed and uh people are quick to to point this out so you know credit where credit is due I try not to do and we’ve done I think well at not boring the listeners or or BL blindsiding them with too many numbers but they are striking in this case in 2015 more than 45,000 arrests for violations of the Cannabis Control Act 45,000 in 2015 in uh 2021 so just 6 years later but after legalization less than 3,000 so that is a huge drop although the fact that arrests are still happening that does point to the fact and you looked at this as well uh the elicit Market which that’s actually where we picked up on I should have just started that clip a little bit earlier but what do you think about that Phil yeah I mean it’s good uh but I also think like does that include improper transport of cannabis because I would doubt it probably not because that’s a new that’s newly defined in the crta I think so he was talking about offenses under the Cannabis Control Act which folks is from 1978 if you want to learn more go to the colo.com history I’ll keep it at that right or another number would be uh like at that town hall I was at where the guy from the can Illinois cannabis Equity Coalition was talking about people getting felonies for having a concealed carry card and a med card at the same time like they’ll get pulled over and they’ll be like oh I I have a gun in the car I have here’s my card they’ll be like oh you also have a med card well that voids your FOID so now you’re a felon so I bet that’s not in those numbers either yeah that’s true and just if folks want to look into that uh or or another one DUI for being over the five nanograms yeah ARB going to be in there right so the threshold is arbitrary I wanted to make clear with what I was saying so yeah that like 45,000 to 3,000 like that’s good but it’s also not like a full reflection of the state of cannabis arest I guess yeah thank you that’s actually much better put than I could have said I was just GNA say I’m a little bit more blunt about it you just added a lot of nuance to it that I think makes a better case I always just go straight too but the number’s not zero you know they might say they might say 45,000 and 3,000 woo that’s a big difference okay yeah but the number’s not zero well and somewhere in those numbers like there was a guy I don’t remember the exact story but I remember it being that he was caught with like four he was caught with like a quarter pound he had just over a 100 grams so he’s charged in that 100 to 500 area which is a felony so he would be in part of those three it’s so it’s not like just people with giant garbage bags full of weed it’s also you know people that are just breaking possession limits which are pretty low very low and arbitrary that you know they don’t really serve a purpose right they have you want to say if you want to say people can’t have five pounds on them at one time sure but I mean why can’t I have a pound of weed in a suitcase and go to a friend’s house right we’re making Edibles people like variety exactly yeah um just displaying right now folks in case you’re curious about what the offenses are in cannabis so yeah if you’re in that 100 to 500 gram range you’re getting a felony one to three years in prison and maximum fines of $25,000 and one thing that’s interesting we had a defense attorney on this year uh attorney Bob gtra and he was saying that like if you get hit with a 100 grams they hit you with 100 grams they don’t hit you with 70 which is what it should be right like yeah you know 30 of them are legal right that would be the case with that guy right who I was just talking about CU if they subtracted the legal amount you’re allowed to have then he’s only over by 70 something which would then be a misdemeanor right it’s so weird and that doesn’t play into it apparently well and you would assume like it maybe hasn’t been challenged because a lot of people just take plea deals you know like you’re not GNA right want to be someone who’s going to try to argue that precedent in court with your actual life yeah very true very true so I don’t know if I could just on this this specific topic before we move on to at least I think my last and most favorite story of 2023 that I have listed I think I had one other honorable mention oh I think I already mentioned my outdoor cultivation as an honorable mention that was my I we didn’t talk about that one yet but that was one of my that was one of my top stories well thank you thank you um I just before we get into those last few stories I just want to say very briefly that uh luckily and I it’s not that I’m like looking for it but I do accept feedback and some of the only feedback I’ve received is that people feel that I’m just constantly complaining about uh the Illinois cannabis market and that I’m not happy about anything and I get that impression or I get I get that or whatever but like my thing is I’m I feel that I’m truly fighting like what I want is for you to have access to the cheapest and best weed and if like you realize that’s where I’m coming from like all of these complaints start to make sense it’s not like I wake up in the morning and want to [ __ ] about things like I want access to the cheapest and best weed and I think everybody should have that access yeah and it’s not like like whatever the market is what the market is it’s like especially as medical patients like I should be able to have like there should be like a caregiver Market yeah you know there should be like a store door that’s open down the street that grows the weed in back and sells it in the front right like like the canvas laws could be much cooler than they are now so it’s like yeah sure grateful for what there is but it’s like I’m not going to support it financially because it’s stupid yeah exactly exactly um and paying that R3 tax is insulting yeah yeah I uh I’m glad it’s becoming more of a point of discussion because I think in States like Ohio there’s some other state that just passed a referendum where like a lot of the like a fair percentage of the tax dollars are going to law enforcement and so they were asking cannabis users like how do you feel about the fact that the people that have been waging this war on you for all these years like now you’re helping like it’s your your responsibility to help fund their Contin continued efforts to whatever they’re doing you know and some I’m not saying I don’t I think it is a statistically significant portion and by that I mean over 5% um goes to law enforcement I could be wrong though um in Illinois in Illinois yeah yeah I remember it’s I think it’s like six% or like s% or something that so but I don’t know um my point in that is you’ve always you’ve always put it much better than I can it I don’t it’s weird how we’ve just accepted that yeah cannabis users the victims of the war on drugs are also shouldered with paying taxes to write the wrongs for the war on trucks well and it’s like is there a comparable like are liquor taxes going to pay for battered women shelters like yeah I I haven’t heard of any program like that maybe it exists yeah our to our tobacco taxes going to this is going to be a bad one our tobacco taxes going towards you know people that SP I don’t know I was going to say something about secondhand smoke the damage that is constantly caused by that but whatever stupid stupid point for me um yeah so I just wanted to explain that like it’s not my goal to be negative I truly don’t want things to complain about it’s because I had this idea of what legal ation was in my mind because of my experience in other markets and just you know your pipe dream pun intended of what legalization is going to be is like these this this place where you can get cheap quality weed and you can smoke with your friends like at the bar and it’s no big deal and all these different things that you would just think you could grow it yourself like it’s all illegal you can’t smoke it in public you can’t grow it except if you have a med card and even if you have a med card you can’t grow it out outside maybe that’s a good transition to which transitions to our next story yes yeah so Phil your background is very when when Cole uncovered Nature’s Grace and wellness’s outdoor grow where was this location I think this is in Vermont Illinois so if you’re watching the video podcast right now Phil’s background is actually uh this is actually you can find this online it’s not even a f a photo that I took this is just photo that’s online thank you Phil um and let me I’ve got the source for that it’s uh marijuana adventure.com wasn’t it bigger when you went uh slightly bigger like like there was more if uh like those back here maybe yeah that back there thank you that as you can see it’s starting to be kind of smoothed out to it’s being flattened and stuff in your picture and they have like more stuff there now so um not outdoor it’s like the greenhouse grow which by the way uh I’ve heard that some craft Growers have been told they can’t even use green houses which is the thing that a lot of these cultivators use this is the uh marijuana Venture story though that this photo that Phil’s using is from and uh this is a story from 2022 which is not before I was aware of it but it was definitely before I took a keen look into this subject and I want to be very clear at like the outset of this because a lot of craft cultivators have apparently been using this my reporting as a conversation piece with the Illinois Department of a and I’ve even been told that the Illinois Department of a is no longer speaking with a lot of these lenses as a result of my reporting I did not look into this for craft cultivators it’s just convenient it it’s just conveniently used like they can use that like and the reason I even spoke about craft well you looked into it you looked into it more for Consumer for yeah medical patients right for that for us being able to grow in our own backyards yeah I’m asking if I got to do that which is that little screened in area in the top left hand of Phil’s background if that’s what I have to do just make a little screened in area and put a [ __ ] camera on it so that I can grow outdoors I’ll do that if that’s what I have to do you know but apparently can’t even do that and nobody else can either and thank you that is the point now it just so happens that conveniently the reason that craft cultivators are not able to start up is because it costs so much [ __ ] money to build a facility like the one that’s directly behind you and of course they would have a smaller one 14,000 square feet um but it costs so much to build that and they can’t even get Investments funding um and I’ve been arguing that hey maybe a way you could do that is by just selling Edibles and Vapes which is all you can sell apparently if you if you do have this variance to grow outdoors um which is also stupid yeah it is pretty silly that they they say that and it’s actually the reason that one of the reasons they’re not allowing this to go on apparently from what I hear on the inside they have concerns about it not being an indoor structure they say that’s not a secure structure as defined as in the crta that’s where they start but then they go on to say there are farms all over the state of Illinois in fact you can see Farmland surrounding this property and they argue that the pesticide use could drift over and uh you know contaminate the Cannabis or something could contaminate the Cannabis and my thing is well don’t we have the strictest stand testing standards in the nation can’t that shouldn’t that accommodate for something um I don’t know they’re and they’re just assuming like they’re never going to have to compete with outdoor cannabis from another state right well also they’re assuming that cannabis has not been grown Outdoors pre 20109 like it’s been grown Outdoors for as long as I mean also indoors because of the drug war but primarily Outdoors you know what I mean like yeah I was just listen I was just hearing a thing I think I told you about it a guy who’s like trying to spread like outdoor growing in Michigan more so the Midwest like a Midwest climate it was just interesting like his idea is like you can grow here Outdoors like Quality Craft flower that people like want to smoke like seek out to smoke you know and that it’s actually better than a lot of the stuff you can grow indoors because it’s the sun you know I don’t know if that has any that’s what I always hear is that the TPS like the the flavor profile the entire experience is better with a sun grown product which I mean I don’t know I can believe it I’ve had like commercially grown tomatoes which could have been grown outdoors I don’t know um but you compare it to like something grown in my mom’s garden and it’s like you know it’s it’s amazing so um yeah I’ll have to get connected with that person you mentioned them once before but yeah I guess you know just to close on this story I I somebody corrected me recently they said Cole it’s not just a trip to Home Depot but I’ve been describing this I me set yeah I’ve been describing this setup as a trip to Home Depot because it’s just like a few [ __ ] P Home Depot and Best Buy yeah and Best Buy you got to get some cameras too right like but I mean like seriously like when you look at what this setup actually is it’s just uh poles netting and some C cameras and fences and that’s that’s the the setup and so yeah apparently these lienes have have even been trying to like I say make you would say they’re stepping it back a bit they’re like okay we we we you won’t let us do outgrow can we do prefab units no can we do uh Greenhouse units no which I found surprising because from what I hear and that’s actually the number one comment that I got about this story that’s why I found this so interesting Phil that’s is why I’m even like kind of making a point to can to put some emphasis into this it’s like the number one comment I got about this story besides why should I care is uh all all grows have Greenhouse grows Cole everybody grows outdoor in Illinois and I’m like no I’m not talking about Greenhouse grows I’m talking about this is outdoor you know oh yeah so but I’m talk New Era I know has some I’m pretty positive that if I look up the Lincoln Cresco facility right now that they have some I’ve even heard that the Lincoln Cresco facility has as close as you can get to an outdoor grow without it being outdoor the greenhouse opens so again these are just things I’ve heard I’ve not seen folks I’m not I was going to look it up uh but we’re going to move on to our next story but any other thoughts on this Phil why why else why was this your favorite story just well I don’t know if it was my favorite one why did it I tried to push that for you why did it make your list of favorites uh just because it’s you know it’s just double standards you know GTI and Nature’s Grace get to do this and social Equity people who the state claims to want to bend over backwards to help don’t get to do it yeah I have to ask a selfish question on this one uh I know that this isn’t like a [ __ ] breaking news high schoolers died from Delta 8 gummies story but like how I I’m I am a little bit frustrated that like to first of all it’s I can’t find I I’m having so much trouble finding the lawsuits that definitely exist that’s definitely why the Illinois Department of Agriculture is not commenting to me and I’ve heard that for sure as mentioned in my article from people hi up in the Department of Agriculture like they have told me that’s why we’re not commenting Cole there is a lawsuit and I asked how do I find the lawsuit and they laughed at me and said Cole I’m not gonna help you find the lawsuit um so folks I need help finding the lawsuit but my question I I wonder is is it just a boring story I I don’t get I I figured if really headline GTI is suing the state of Illinois that’s that’s my headline you know I don’t think people like pick up on the minutia of it you know true fair enough fair enough yeah anyways so that’s outdoor cultivation in Illinois some people can do it not all of us though um and not and not you but not you that’s right it’s dangerous I’m not I’m not anyways um my top story of the year is uh something I was actually present for I’m not going to play my footage of it I’m just going to share the Chicago Sun Times reporting uh Governor pritzer touts Illinois pot legalization as the model for other states we built out the most Equitable accessible and prosperous cannabis ecosystem in the nation and it’s one that helps repair our past harms was this September this was in uh September yep for Ben Zinga that’s insane to say that [ __ ] in September of 2023 right time dude this year are you saying that because this year you felt it flew by too no no no just saying calling Illinois the most Equitable it’s just like what understood talking about right yeah well um it’s the best it’s the best man here’s the thing Phil while in many States legalization of cannabis has produced a multi-billion dollar industry that lacks diversity and is dominated by an oligopoly of Corporations really only High net worth individuals here in Illinois the land of the Lincoln we’re trying to do things differently Phil so why don’t you take that yeah it’s isn’t that the perfect they are doing description isn’t that the perfect description though of the Illinois cannabis industry like the one he just laid out and then he said but but in Illinois we’re trying to do it differently well and they’ll always point at the license numbers and it’s like no but who’s getting all the profits like last I saw one in four products sold in the state as a Cresco product so Phil you are asking a brilliant question and I don’t have an answer for you but I have a a prediction for you but before we do that is this what you’re talking about is this what they would say um to what we’re saying is they would say well well but we’ve got 50% yeah yeah this is what you’re pointing out right and then if you did like who’s actually profiting it’s like much more skewed yeah yeah interesting to look at these comments too um and I just have to say I still think it’s hilarious that their third post mentions us um I archived that for history I’m proud of that this the state of Illinois made a post including one of my projects that’s just you can’t make it up um so my prediction is that it’s going to be a statistically insignificant number of sales again under 5% all of these social Equity licenses uhhuh yeah because if you’re saying one and four yeah the the numbers are just they’re not there like and think about it who’s well what I’ve seen is all of the price comp or most of the price compression is happening on retailers not the Growers and I mean there’s only a handful of of these craft Growers operating that’s what I’m saying it’s like I mean when you think about how many people are operating that’s where I’m coming up uh with yeah with that so I was just pulling up um we can make this quick because it’s not a super big story but I really wanted to talk to you about that emerging cannabis Market in Illinois article that you sent me with those cool graphs you cool it in the show on yeah yeah mhm cool my prediction for Illinois cannabis though for the year is more of the same yeah thank you yeah 2024 will look a lot like 2023 yeah and that I didn’t mean that to be my uh prediction for 2024 I just meant that to be my prediction since you brought up like how many say it like that’s that’s what I predict to be uh the number of sales if they ever produce something like that so um yeah I’ll have to think of a prediction for 2024 but before I do that it’ll probably what be what you just said honestly um more of the same I don’t see any big changes coming unfortunately I wish I could come up with something optimistic but I just I just can’t it seems like I mean you’ll have like you’ll have like a handful more craft producers you’ll have more dispensaries open but like does that really change the market the nature of the market prices will come down a little more yeah is that like is that all we’re after right I think so I think you know uh people just become apathetic to the progress you’re talking about I think like to your point of what I said or to what I was saying about earlier I feel like yeah that’s a little bit too much in the minutia you know what I mean like they just they see they hear legal weed and there’s a store nearby and like you’d think think the point you’re trying to make is you’d think they’d want better options you’d think they’d want more options and I don’t think that they necessarily don’t but they don’t like get so into it that we do that we that they see even how to accomplish that am I being too broad stroke on that you get what I’m saying like I I just feel like it’s not that they disagree that they want those things but to them it’s like that box Brown comic the issue is just they don’t see it as an issue anymore uh they see the issue is over because there are stores you can go to to just buy it you know what I mean right they’re just like what’s the big deal you know well yeah and at this point like people using the regulated market in Illinois are just like expecting it to be like it is you know yeah if you’re really that turned off by it you’re probably not using it anymore right I was about to just say I was about to be like a little I was about to say which is sad because cannabis is not what you get in the Illinois dispensaries like by and large like canabus is supposed to be sticky and fresh and it’s not very rarely is it that well you you should just have you should just have the option to smell it before you buy it yeah see what you’re buying at the very least you know um so but yeah I don’t know I like I say it’s that’s that’s another point that I’ve been having trouble getting to resonate with a larger audience and it it always feels like I’m just screaming about it and it’s like but I’m screaming because I want it to be better you know what I mean so well and these graphs in this thing are like you know yeah an example of what we’re talking about pretty crazy stuff so let’s get into it uh the headline just really quick if you’re wanting to look this up and links will be in the podcast description as well um the emerging cannabis Market in Illinois prices taxes and Supply constraints uh this is this is by the University of Illinois the Department of Agriculture and consumer economics off to check off to try to connect with these authors um so yeah interesting stuff uh one of the things I think just the headline here this isn’t the headline but it’s like how they start the paper and then we’ll get into these graphs recreational Cannabis prices in Illinois are among the highest in the country they site headset data from 2023 more than double the price in nearby Michigan Illinois also imposes higher retail taxes than Michigan does and I like that they say it that way because a lot of people lead with we’ve got higher taxes no we’ve got higher prices and then yes also higher taxes like it’s the one two punch um well what’s funny though is at a certain level the taxes are actually the same right like Illinois taxes cannabis flower at least like below 35% at 10% that’s the same that Michigan taxes it at oh at the state level but Illinois has a higher sales tax in general so it’s like 6% in Michigan it’s like 10% here roughly and then Illinois also allows local municipalities to add on taxes at like the city City and the county level so you have another like 6% that can be added on so that’s how you get like you know 25% or 26% here and then over in Michigan it’s only 16 but then if you do for concentrates you know that’s like 40% versus like 16% that is insane but that’s like when they say like oh lower the Cannabis taxes it’s like well for like flour they’re really not going to be able to right yeah because like no like the local you know they’re not going to want to give up their 3% yeah and then the state does it at the same rate that they do in Michigan so I feel like you’re always going to have that like 25% versus 16% variance between the two states they they will need to get rid of those concentrate taxes though yeah absolutely those are just nuts yeah and they apply to infused products too because I think the their tax the same rate which is yeah just crazy slight I think slightly less yeah I think it’s like 20% and then concentrates are like 25 something like that gotcha because they wanted to make it oh and then but there’s also like wholesale taxes right so those are added on too like when a grower sells it to a dispensary that’s taxed also at a certain percent oh yeah yeah no you’re right absolutely yeah the wholesale tax I don’t know what those two are between the two states but I actually I’ll have to try to get my hands on the formula but I was actually shown that you know people always [ __ ] about the $60 e and they somebody showed me a breakdown I’m sure it’s not hard to replicate this formula but honestly yeah with the whes sale tax and everything else they are not like they’re barely making money selling it at like $608 and I say barely making money is I think it was like $15 a profit or something like that per unit something around there um but then they showed me the breakdown this person was a hemp operator so they showed like hey I’m setting this at the same price and I’m making 30 bucks a unit you know like something like that oh right yeah because of the cost of like being in the regulated market uhhuh yeah yeah so I just thought that was kind of a funny uh comparison so um back over to the the report though um interesting stuff do you have any thoughts on this first graphic I don’t mean to Breeze by it no I just wish that Michigan would keep that oh my God thank you I was just talking like I feel like Michigan I feel like over half of what they sell has to be to out of state because they have liberal homow laws like up to 12 plants for anyone and then they have that whole caregiver Market that supplies most of the medical community that’s still around so I I just feel like there’s no way that like if our if we’re doing like a quarter of our sales still to out of state people there’s no way Michigan isn’t doing like half yeah yeah and I I just got into a conversation with Justin liby about this uh because I made that post I don’t even remember what it was about at this point but I said why is Michigan consistently outselling you know Illinois and he pointed out that you know we do get a lot of out of state sales and or something something to that effect and I I got into that same thing with him where I was like I wish Michigan would produce their out of state sales it would be interesting to see that um this is interesting uh the prices have gone down in both markets um so this I mean the prices are not comparable to Michigan here but I’ve seen like $120 ounces in dispensaries in Illinois well yeah it’s funny I’ll go for $120 ounce in Michigan but the key distinction there as you pointed it out earlier in Michigan I’m able to look at it first you know smell it a little bit and Illinois it feels like such a gamble to go for that $120 well also you’ll like like you know the shops I’ll go to it’s like okay here’s all of our oun like you can get any of these ounces for like 80 or 90 bucks and there’s like eight 10 options you know like it I just the way with the like prepackage stuff in Illinois it’s like I don’t know you you look at a menu and it’s like they’ll have you know a smattering of ounces half of them are going to be produced by some company you wouldn’t want to touch at all I just feel like there’s never that many options yeah well and uh I want to see if I did not prepare you on this but I’ve heard you we’ve talked about this before so I’m going to play a position that I don’t completely believe and I want you to to respond to it Michigan I’ve gone to Michigan and they have shitty weed so yeah they got cheaper weed but that the their weed sucks they do have some shitty weed just like we do yeah you just got to shop better just got to shop better think the example exle I like that you gave when we’ve had this conversation in the past is have you ever been to a liquor store right yeah there’s like there’s tons of bottom shelf product in you don’t even see like I actually thought about it you don’t even look at it you’re just like you know what you want if it’s the Captain Morgan the Jack Daniels the [ __ ] uh what what is it the I don’t know alcohol Phil so you’re you know right yeah the the real problem the real problem for people like coming to that market new is just that like I mean just like Illinois like you’d have to do a little bit of research to find out who the good producers are but in Illinois it’s like oh there’s 10 producers here’s three that are pretty much guaranteed to have good products the rest it’s all a gamble yeah like I’d rather have like a thousand producers where maybe a hundred of them are really good you know like you’re still going to have a majority of it be stuff that’s probably not appealing to you but you got way more options right yeah Johnny Walker that was the other name I was trying to think of you know you just look all over those options like you say though there are many options that you could find that are good and then you might even hear about some like oh my God have you tried this new like that’s what’s so great about these types of economies and I don’t understand why we’re preventing them because they’re quote quote tough or Price compression right like I love price compression it that’s that’s what I’m saying we should start saying that I [ __ ] love price compression because honestly in any I’m just asking you before we move on to these next few graphs like in any other Market if prices compress like you’re usually like woo like right now gas prices are falling they were like 320 I Justine told me I’m an old person that I keep track of gas prices by the way uh that’s like an old person thing it’s almost like keeping track happens to it happens to everybody Cole yeah it’s a like don’t let me tell you I remember I remember less than a dollar gas oh really wow [ __ ] so but I’ve been told it’s like keeping track of like postage the the price of post postage stamps keep that’s keeping track track of gas prices but just like a few months ago it was like 330 [ __ ] I was in Chicago it was like 350 370 and now I just saw gas station the other day it was 268 and I’m like [ __ ] yeah I’m not thinking like oh my God but how are the people in gas gonna make money you know like I don’t care I don’t care I’m happy and I don’t it’s interesting how price compression has been used as like a a bad thing um there’s a lot of interesting information that I’m breezing over here folks to definitely look into this we’re just kind of doing the graphs right now unless Phil you had anything specific that you remember but I thought this one was a really funny graph to see that to really put license limitations into like perspective like how they were well and I like those in parenthesis next to those it says next to Illinois issued and next to Michigan active oh that number would be a lot less if it was like that would just be a flat line pretty much if it was Illinois active yeah no straight up it would be a flat line like the the there would be the slightest uptick because there’s I think out of the 80 that have been issued or something like that which yeah that looks about right there’s like a dozen that are like active yeah I actually heard the other number the other day maybe up maybe it was like up to 20 that are like permitted to do construction or have started Construction right yeah I can’t remember what the WBEZ report that I listened to the other day and when it was dated but they were saying less than 10 I’m pretty sure it was like eight um were actually active like operational deemed as operational oh yeah definitely less than 10 yeah yeah that are like growing yeah yeah so um crazy stuff this one was an interesting one because this one you know it’s issued in estimated thank you again for pointing out the parenthesis I totally missed that my first go through this um because that really does change how you look at this data uh but it is interesting to see that Illinois it like makes it gives you the impression that we’re ahead and I mean we you could say we were because when we opened on day one our adult use centers were from the medical program basically and so yeah we had a lot of uh production right off the bat um but it is interesting to see the active number has definitely eclipsed or what is it it’s surpassed the uh estimated number of licens production uh well and you can see you can see too it seems like it’s like cresting in Michigan it’s like these things do kind of find their own yeah ceiling uhhuh like people aren’t going to keep opening these businesses if they see everybody going out of business so right it’s going to work itself out like I it’d be interesting to see the curve of price compression like Let It play out and maybe Michigan is what we have to watch on it maybe that like you say maybe they’re going to kind of Peter out at what we’re at I don’t know yeah I don’t know Oregon would probably have a longer record true true and I think it’s still pretty cheap out there and I hear it’s pretty good yeah yeah yeah so I really like how they close this uh while it is difficult to determine the degree to which high cannabis prices in Illinois are the result of production constraints there is strong correlation between changes in licensed production capacity and price as capacity has grown in Michigan over time prices have fallen more than in Illinois we conclude that production licensing constraints are one contributor to cross state differences in prices there are other potential Supply constraints as well um yeah I just thought it was very very it’s just funny to hear to like read like a scholarly thing like this it’s like yeah all of us cannabis users know this right right yeah we’ve been ke there seems to be a strong correlation between the price of weed and the number of licenses issues that’s so funny uh yeah uh that it’s basically what you just said there accurate and timely information about supply and demand is important for well- functioning agricultural markets we note that Michigan publishes significantly more detailed information on production than Illinois does in providing cannabis industry data Illinois may want follow the lead of its neighbor they may also want to follow the lead in other ways we we might want to start pointing to it at we might want to stop pointing to it as a failure because I don’t know like again we point this out all the time and this is what we can close on 2022 Illinois had like 1.8 billion in cannabis sales I’m just looking it up 2022 Illinois cannabis sales what was it like one what’s your prediction do you remember I mean I just know the Michigan I just know that Michigan sold more yeah Michigan did sell more so 1.5 I was closer to my 1.6 so Illinois cannabis sales for all of 20122 reached a record high of more than 1.5 billion so I think it was 1.6 oh so but Michigan can cannabis sales I believe is 2.5 of course somehow 2.3 so we will share that um Michigan smashes cannabis sales record at 2.3 billion in 2022 my question to to you the question I’ve been asking is if Michigan is a failure why then are they selling more cannabis than us you know it’ be interesting to see their December numbers yeah and I don’t know I just I think it’s weird that we’re hinging success on oper on how operators feel about the market my definition of success is is the is the number of people in jail for a cannabis related infraction that’s nonviolent I don’t know why I have to quantify it that way but I feel that I do uh is it zero no okay well then we’re not successful yet and also is the market providing the best product for the lowest price for the most people yeah absolutely that that’ be the standard for the market for me thank you yeah that’s the good that’s a great standard for the market you know if you want to look for Success there so well Phil I think we covered the gamut thank you for doing this again with me this is the second year a pleasure yeah thanks for coming on the show throughout the year and uh being a supporter but also a contributor to the conversation I always enjoy uh chat with you so we look forward to more insane and redundant cannabis uh Illinois Cannabis News in the new year yeah hopefully we aren’t talking about the same things before we go can just in case people were wondering what the hell you have in your hand can you just show people how cool that light is that you have it’s my it’s my novelty lighter I just in case people because you were like talking with it like making points with it and people were like probably like what the hell is that thing yeah I had two cups of coffee while we were sitting here so now I’m very fidgety no I liked how you it almost looked like you were like conducting music I liked how you were able to talk with it but I was just thinking I was like I just sit here all day playing with this thing yeah I just know that somebody’s sitting there like trying to like pause it and like what the [ __ ] is that thing in his hand so anyway my microphone yeah there you go there you go all right well folks I hope you found it value in this conversation as I did um we’ll see you in the next episode have a happy 2024 everybody smoke as much smash your record on smok and weed this year that’s the goal take care