The Cole Memo

In this episode, I speak about the CURE act and some cannabis bills that have been proposed which caught my eye.

• Watch the episode on Patreon here
• Watch the episode on Youtube here
• Stream the episode on Soundcloud here
• Stream the episode on Spotify here
• Stream the episode on Apple Podcast here
• Stream the episode on X here

Links mentioned during show

• Click here to watch interview with Representative La Shawn Ford on CURE Act
• https://thecolememo.com/2023/12/09/recap-fireside-chat-with-cbai-and-croo/
• Illinois News Joint article that I mentioned can be found here

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

hello and welcome this is the Cole memo in today’s episode we’re going to be talking about potential legislative news for cannabis and drug policy in Illinois folks you’re tuned in to the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to find the transcript audio or video version of any episode please refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you can find a link that will take you to our website which will display the transcript for this episode the platforms where you can find this episode in audio or video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply note the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use our search functionality in the top right hand corner to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of that episode you might also find any you might also find any links that we reference during the episode I’ve got a few today so that you might be able to do your own research that’s always in encouraged if you’re not listening to this episode of the Cole memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to the memo.com patreon it’s a great way to support our show one of the best ways to support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow our show leave a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment or share it with your cousin your engagement and support is a appreciated today is March 20th 2024 and once again I’ve got my eyes on potential drug policy news and let me show you how I keep track of this stuff you know sharing is caring I’ve never claimed to be anything more than a person that bought a microphone and smokes a lot of weed I am not a journalist in fact I’ve always insisted on the fact that I’m not a journalist uh so let’s go to ledes scan.com to take a look at this I’m going to share my screen for folks that are watching the podcast to show you what I’m seeing so if we go to ledes scan.com and we go to search and then oh look at that the text is already filled out as Canabis because I’m always searching them so I did a text search in the state of Illinois for any bills with the word cannabis inside of it and I’m going to sort I change the Sorting on this Last Action and you’ll see a few different bills this first one is not cannabis related but I will mention it because it’s getting to the point where it’s been assigned to a committee it looks like and witness uh they’re collecting witness slips and stuff The Cure act in case you didn’t know the Cure Act is the uh compassionate use and research of entheogens act uh it would basically create a legal structure for the use uh of psilocybin and silin so mushrooms in other words we’ve talked about this on the show in the past it also removes psilocybin and Sison from the list of schedule one controlled substances in the state of Illinois if you’d like to see our coverage on this in the past I will throw a link in the show notes uh so that you can see my interview with representative Lesean Ford who is the house sponsor of the Cure act I believe this is a c bill look at me learning the ropes okay so that’s the Cure act the here are the other things that caught my eye so let’s take a look here uh it looks like there was some action on 315 which was about five days ago on this bill which is Senate Bill 1723 and I took a some notes on these uh so Senate Bill 1723 the bill would amend the Cannabis regulation and Tax Act to remove restrictions on the number of craft grower licenses one entity can hold so um this is a little bit unclear to me what exactly they mean on this um it also seems to I looked in the text to the bill which I’ll show you how I do that in here here in a moment it seems to make the craft grower license immediately a 14,000 foot license you know as it stands now craft Growers can go up to 14,000 fet but it’s in a process where they kind of like are graduated like they step up from I think it’s like 3,000 to maybe 5,000 and then if they prove they can handle that then they can increase it further I think this bill seems to make it so that they would be immediately 14,000 ft again I’ll show you where I am uh Gathering that the bill also would prohibit advertising cannabis products as craft unless it’s produced by a craft grower and it also exempts craft Growers from certain taxes for two years after licensing now that first part that I was talking about the bill prohibits advertising cannabis products as craft this is some an issue that has come up in the past craft Growers have become upset that some of the established lenses are uh you know putting a label on their product that says craft now the thing is is that this just seems like a silly battle to try and have because I feel like as soon as you make this not allowed they’re just going to change to another term like small batch or artisanal something like that I don’t know um but that was Senate Bill 1723 let’s take a look at this text because I’m not sure there’s a few things that stood out to me I mentioned a few of them um this is an interesting one so it in here it makes it so that it removes restrictions on the number of craft grower licenses one entity can hold and requires the issuance of additional craft grower licenses so let’s look up one just doing a contrl f on my computer and somewhere in here of course there’s a lot of ones so one or more here you go a license pursuant to the subex shall only hold one craft grower license and may not sell that license so they removed that but this is my question and I don’t know enough about the law admittedly to answer this question but there should be another part in the law okay so this says shall not hold more than two craft grower licenses so is it just that you can hold see this is this part where it’s and does this have to do with just simply winning like if you’ve okay yeah the issuance of licenses so I think this is in the context of the issuance of licenses because at the end of the day I believe you can have a maximum of three cultivation licenses which of course I’m having trouble seeing that but it actually looks like yeah here any person or awarded a license pursuant this subsection shall not hold more than three craft grower licenses which is what I expected so now that I looked into this text I think I understand that part a little bit more now the 14,000 square feet part that is still a little bit unclear to me but you can see right here they clearly struck out the words 5,000 and they’re adding 14,000 so this text and green is what is being added so I encourage you all to look this up yourself and and to do your own research uh because you can see very quickly how uh you can almost make sense of this it’s still a lot of legal ease um but you can see how it starts to make sense so that was Senate Bill 1723 I don’t know that I have any other thoughts on that let’s move on to the next one down the line so there’s Senate Bill 3480 believe I’ve got notes on it as well let’s open up Senate Bill 3480 so apparently the bill would amend laws related to Medical candids programs to address disparities in the industry it would create a registration process for adult youth dispensing organizations with social Equity licenses uh I guess the ability to sell medical cannabis products I mean that’s what this seems to be saying it says in the findings of provisions of the social equity in the cannabis industry article of the ACT which I don’t know in the findings I don’t know what that means it provides that the general assembly also finds and recognizes the dispensaries established under the compassionate use of medical cannabis program act enacted in 201 2014 had inadvertently placed those dispensaries within with an adult use dispensing organization social Equity license at a competitive disadvantage so this would provide that this competitive imbalance yeah so I think this has to do with giving all dispensaries the ability to sell medical cannabis products and it aims to rectify what they’re calling an imbalance in that regard let’s move on to the next bill that I saw 3785 and for this one so this bill would amend the Cannabis regulation and tax act to allow the Cannabis Business Development Fund to support financial assistance for social Equity applicants and Lottery licenses it would enable the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to enter Financial agreements to facilitate lending or investment in these entities and allow sharing of leny information for social Equity programming Administration so I’d like to just remind everybody that Illinois news joint did some excellent reporting on the fact that in a recent Illinois budget approval the state comproller directed the state treasurer to transfer 40 million from the compassionate use of medical cannabis fund to the Cannabis Business Development Fund and I believe that is the fund that they were referencing in this law this is the report by Illinois news joint so the reason that’s important is because that is money from sick patients so I guess the funding source for social equity Illinois is sick patience uh next bill Senate Bill 3800 this one I don’t think anything was crazy interesting on this one but let’s take a look have I even looked at this yet um so I hadn’t looked at this one yet but at a glance it looks like it would provide that the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation shall issue all agent identification cards under the ACT via an online portal when I say that look I’m just looking at the summary folks just like I did on the first bill it’s very important to read the full text because they could have this summary um but for example that Illinois news joint article that I just mentioned the bill that I believe passed it was called the Illinois insulin act which would make you think the bill was about insulin and maybe there were Provisions about insulin in it but I believe it was this like omnius Arrangement Google that word if you don’t want to know what it means Omnibus and uh that’s how we got this transfer of money from the Cannabis Business Development Fund sorry from the medical cannabis fund to the Cannabis Business Development Fund so that’s what this one is uh let’s take a look at the next bill so this one I did find kind of interesting I’ve heard some talk about it in the past and basically what I’m understanding it to do is it amends the compassionate use of medical cannabis program act by removing references to quote excluded offenses in quote and Provisions prohibiting employed individuals from having such convictions it replaces the background check Provisions with ones conducted by the Illinois State Police for prospective officers board members and agents of all medical cannabis organizations the bill also amends the medical canab the Cannabis regulation and Tax Act to ensure that nonviolent cannabis related convictions don’t disqualify individuals from serving in the Cannabis business establishments or in cannabis in the Cannabis industry that’s the part that I found very interesting um it would provide that you know people if they have a non-violent cannabis fence would not be prevented from working in the Cannabis industry that was a thing I’ve heard about that before people that have had cannabis offenses uh have been told that they can’t work in the Cannabis industry it’s like wait a minute but isn’t that the working experience you you’d like and this last bill looks to be a bill that would provide that a physical examination required by the ACT may be performed by remote means including tele medicine effective immediately instead of may not be apparently the language in the law has said may not be in the past which is what they’re referring to in the summary why don’t we take a look at it again I want to just show you how to apply this knowledge so as you can see right here the physical this is the way the law reads and this part that they crossed out is what they’re taking out of the law so the physical examination required by this act may not be performed by remote means including tele medicine it’s almost like they wrote this perfect so that they could just scratch out not it’s crazy now now it will just say may be performed by remote means including tele medicine so let’s see is there anything else new in here it’s always good to check it doesn’t look like there is so I hope that this episode was informative and I just want to say that it may go without saying but for those of you that are new to the legislative process like myself just because these bills are coming up on legis scan as like 99% 95% that doesn’t mean like that’s the likelihood first of all that’s a match if you see the column there but if you see the status column like if it says intro 25% that doesn’t mean it’s like got a 25% chance of passing like honestly I think any of these bills have equal likelihood of passing and often what happens at the end at least from what I can tell not only at the state level but at the federal level is it’s like this Mad Dash at the end to create this like crazy Omnibus and uh a lot of these bills that are submitted especially the ones that are submitted early on are just like placeholders from the bill and for bills and even legislators will tell you that you know they they almost call them shells I believe they call them shell bills so just because these are bills that have been proposed doesn’t mean they will become law they do have to pass both the Senate and the house and be signed by the governor in order to become law um so just sharing what I know and of course if uh this information is helpful please be sure to give this episode a thumbs up or favorite it and share it with your friends and uh if there’s anything that you know I got incorrect please do let me know because as I said multiple times through this episode and have always said I am uh constantly looking to learn and uh importantly share what I learn and that’s a little bit of what I try to do today I hope you found I don’t know I didn’t know what I was about to say I hope you found value in this episode of the Cole memo we’ll see you on the next one take care everybody goodbye