The Cole Memo

Here is a quick 10 minute episode for your 4/20! During this episode, I discuss recent statements that Jim Belushi made at a Cannabis Innovation Summit hosted by our friends at GrownIn and 1871. I also discuss outages that seem to be affecting dispensaries in the state of Illinois and across the nation today.

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Links mentioned during show

Crain’s Chicago article

Capital Fax Article

Southside Weekly Article

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

hello and welcome today is April 20th 2024 you are 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 and 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 take note of the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can use our search functionality to find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of the episode you might also find any links that we reference during the episode so that you might be able to do your own research I will be referencing a few today if you’re not 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with your best friend once again folks it is 42 20 blaze it I’m going to spark up some right now folks recently there was a oh gosh I believe it was a cannabis Innovation lab let’s look at this article by Capital facts I am going to display my screen right now I wish I could have made it to this it was a let’s see so the article from Crane’s Chicago it was a cannabis Innovation Summit yesterday at startup incubator 1871 it was in partnership with our good friend Brad spearson um from Grown in.com definitely check them out Brad’s been on the show several times uh the the quote that’s been making waves in the news is Jim blo she saying something to the effect of I had a conversation with governor priter who I really think is on our side he’s a good guy I said last year you guys collected 400 17 million in cannabis taxes and you collected 207 million in liquor taxes there’s a lot more liquor stores and bars than there are dispensaries so the the headline and what everybody was saying uh I guess Belushi said was that you know um we need to lower taxes and it looks like BL she also said Joe Biden’s effort to reschedule marijuana moving in out of the most restricted class of Controlled Substances will be a major boost for the industry if deregulation happens we’re going to have another boom I think regulation and Taxation will come down a little bit and make it more competitive with the illicit market so the one thing that I wanted to just say is I really appreciate that Jim Belushi is acknowledging that prices of cannabis are too high it does seem like that’s kind of what’s being being discussed again I wasn’t there but I have to appreciate a discussion about taxes and prices and uh you know back to this article from Capital facts that first one I was displaying was from cranes again I’ll have all these listed in the podcast description this article by Rich Miller from Capital facts he asked JB pritzker spokesperson Jord Jordan AB Abida sorry if I’m saying that name wrong if the governor supports a cannabis tax her answer was no or as I posted it on Twitter uh I use the uh this little meme her answer no and you know one of the things I just want to say once again before I go any further on this rant is that even well first of all before I go any further on this rant I would like to say that I appreciate any and all conversations about high prices and how they affect to the consumer uh but I think it’s important to acknowledge that as I’ve been posting online even without taxes prices in Illinois surpass those of any other state consumer challenges do not stem from high taxes I would say alone it’s time that we acknowledge that these problems stem from the state’s Market structure which restricts choice and competition leading to pricey leading to a pricey and stagnant shopping experience the elephant in the room is limited licensing not taxing I mean the taxes suck for sure but the elephant in the room is limited licensing which allows for these prices to be arbitrarily high and that’s the true issue folks um that’s the true issue this 420 that has just been the issue with Illinois cannabis in general uh speaking of Market structure I was recently uh included my perspective was included in this article from Southside weekly I’m not going to go through it necessarily right now but if you’d like to read it the headline is Big Business runs Illinois cannabis there’s a lot of very interesting perspectives including perspectives that have been on the show in the past and like I say uh I am also featured in this article you can see my name right there um I’d like to I’d like to take the time to highlight an important point on my post on Instagram can see that lley from Illinois news joint commented agreed Cole limited licensing is the original sin of the Illinois cannabis system going all the way back to the medical pilot program fun fact there are mechanisms already built in the into the regulations that could expand the number of licenses which means the state wants the market to be the way that it is yes absolutely this is something we’ve covered on the show in the past let’s watch a video that proves the point uh that lley just brought up and it’s a point that makes me feel less alone I just want to say thank you again uh to lley for not only acknowledging the true issue but for bringing up the fact that uh well there’s a mechanism to expand the program let’s watch the video Governor Christian Mitchell so uh what this contemplates is that there would not be new large scale cultivation in the first wave that is an effort to make sure that as we roll out a a wave of C of craft grow licenses that you don’t see a situation where the large guys crowd out the smaller folks there would then be a measure uh after a timed release to look at a demand study and figure out if we in fact need more large scale cultivation if that in fact happens then uh the appropriate Department can make a determination uh and issue new licenses great thank so once again uh very important point to discuss and I just want to say thanks again to lley for acknowledging my my re you know real point which is that limited licensing is uh the issue behind all of this before we go it is 420 and uh people are purchasing cannabis of course today and I’ve actually been hearing about outages uh not only in the state of Illinois but I did a quick search um on Reddit and Twitter or X however you want to call it and I am seeing reportages that suggest uh report sorry tweets and posts that seem to suggest that duchy is experiencing issues news uh the reports that I’ve read indicate that this has led to Consumers being turned away from numerous unaffiliated storefronts in Illinois and like I said based on the posts that I’ve seen it’s a trend that appears to be affecting locations nationwide uh one store in Illinois or at least a few stores from uh the new era chain of dispensaries which as far as I understand they do I believe use uh duy I’ve not reached out to them for confirmation on that but they have shared that their point of sale systems are down at multiple dispensaries Statewide and it’s causing slow service um I’m just going to show really quick if I do a search on Twitter you will see well um Twitter’s post Twitter’s search functionality is not working well but here are a few posts that do seem to confirm you know just five minutes minutes ago our Point of Sales system down went went down on the biggest year of work we couldn’t move any products today people left any empty-handed on a national holiday 85% of Cannabis stores in the state use this POS system too I don’t know that that’s true um I don’t know that ever I mean it is a popular one uh I did a post on LinkedIn about duy going down and now VPS and VCS from Cannabis are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn rip to everyone using duy yeah so there’s a lot of people people confirming that or at least saying that they don’t seem to be alone and that uh duy is going down some people are indicating that this is not the first time this has happened I I don’t know I personally don’t pay attention to these things these types of things all the time um but you know just wanted to share what is happening because it is 420 happy 420 folks I hope you found value in this episode check out the show notes for some of the links that were discussed in this episode and I hope that you enjoy your 420 we’ll see you on the next episode of the Cole memo take care