The Cole Memo

In this episode, I review new cannabis legislation that was filed in the state of Illinois.

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Links mentioned during show

• SB3940
• SB3491
• Episode 14 – (Exclusive) Fines issued against cultivators and dispensaries in Illinois
• Article for Fines issued against cultivators and dispensaries in Illinois (pesticides applied in flowering stage)

The auto-generated transcript is available below.

hello and welcome to this episode of the Cole memo in this episode I’m going to be going through some legislation that was just filed I’ll kind of be showing you how I do that as a layman in other words as somebody who is not qualified and I’ll show you what I think I see again I’m not qualified I’m not a legal professional I’m not not a journalist and I’ve always really insisted on on in fact the opposite I’m just a person just like you uh I just bought a microphone and you just happen to to be choosing to listen to me right now 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 for the first time in a long time I’m doing a podcast live on Instagram 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 and if you follow that link it 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 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 links that we reference during the episode so that you might be able to do your own research since I mentioned if you’re just tuning in right now there are cannabis bills that have been filed and some things have caught my eye in these bills uh I’ll have those bills Linked In the podcast description for this episode if you’re not listening to this episode of the coal 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 another way to support our show is at the memo.com support you can make a one-time monthly or yearly contribution of your choice that’s right you could donate a dollar monthly that’s $12 a year and it would help me uh to afford hosting fees equipment travel uh so on and so forth but I just want to say if you’re not able to support us financially that’s totally okay one of the best ways to support our show is free subscribe to or follow our show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment comment or post a review your engagement and support is appreciated it’s just about 6:00 p.m. it’s May 1 2024 wow we’re already almost halfway through 2024 there was some big news yesterday but that’s not we’re talk that’s not what we’re talking about today what we’re talking about today are two cannabis bills that were recently filed I’ll be going through uh both of them um I’m going to to start with uh the second bill that I actually saw today I’m going to display it on my screen right now so once again folks if you’re not watching watching the video version of this podcast you’re missing out on the visual element uh that is provided so this first bill that I am displaying right now which once again will be linked in the podcast description was filed by Senator Laura fine who I’ve personally not heard of uh but there were some things that stood out to me that seem one specific thing that seems a bit unnecessary we’ll go through this again I I just want to reiterate one more time that not only is this my first reading of this law or this bill rather uh but I am not a legal professional and so you know this is my Layman understanding of what I’m reading I should also stress like I try to stress every time we look through bills on this show this is just a bill it’s not the law yet it’s just a proposal it would have to pass uh the chamber in which it was introduced and then of course the other one so in this case this is a Senate bill because like I said it was from Senator Laura fine so uh it would have to also go through the house before being signed by the governor and ultimately becoming along here’s the thing that stood out to me I want to just start with the red flags of this new bill um there’s a part in the bill and I’ll pull it up right now this is how I will show you how I go through bills so when you’re looking at a bill as a lay person as you can see it’s pretty looks pretty boring uh the text is relatively Bland but what you’ll notice is that some text is underlined these are updates let’s look at the update that really really caught my eye and uh like I said I I felt upon first blush was a bit unnecessary if you search up the term seeds in this bill it I believe it appears eight times in both this bill and the Cannabis regulation and tax act under what’s this section here if I were to cite it so it says a dispensing organization shall not I’m not sure it’s under subsection P of whatever this is under you can see this this is way down in here a dispens organization shall not and then you scroll all the way down here they added seeds to the language so they may not sell seeds clones or any other live patient plant material except to a registered qualifying medical cannabis patient or designated caregiver and so on my first read I thought that that meant they may not sell them at all but on my second read as I’m reading it right now on the podcast it says except to a registered qualifying medical patient um I think this is interesting because some of these cultivators accidentally sell seeds so I wonder what happens if they accidentally do that you know because we’ve heard we’ve all heard those stories so I found that interesting and there there you can see like you saw that as it happened I read the the language again and my understanding of it changed so as we go through the rest of this stuff keep that in mind read it for yourself I guess is what I’m saying that’s why I link these bills and I’m kind of teaching you how to read this so that you can read it for yourself and and frankly if you read it a different way than I read it I’d love for you to leave a comment or uh contact us at the memo.com contct because I’d love to hear how you interpret these uh bills so another part of this bill that was introduced would uh basically make it so that curbside is allowed for everybody um I think I also saw that a dispensing organization may sell cannabis infused products from any cultivation Center craft grower infuser or dispensary to persons 21 years of age or older or to qualifying patients designated caregivers and provisional patients so this bill adds language that would allow for qualifying patients provisional patients and caregivers to buy medical cannabis quote unquote from all dispensaries in other words you get your cannabis your regulated cannabis at a lower tax rate uh which is uh a a big complaint that we hear I wouldn’t say actually a big complaint I would say the bigger complaint is the lack of choice and the high prices I wouldn’t say you know it seems like too many people focus on the fact that you can’t purchase these products when really the problem is that we have a limited market uh that causes arbitrarily high prices and and lack of selection so I actually paused the podcast for a moment because I got some questions from our listeners on Instagram uh regarding some of the topics that I was that I was just discussing somebody asked am I aware of any dispensaries that are actually even selling seeds and and no I’m not and in fact I asked about this on May 8th of 2022 so almost two years ago um I asked the Cannabis regulation oversight office about the availability of seeds and dispensaries and I’m just now realizing I got to be at least five minutes into this podcast and I’ve not lit my joint yet which is a problem so I asked Dani then cannabis regulation oversight officer about the availability of seeds and dispensary pause for me lighting my joint okay they responded and said to the cro O’s knowledge there are no dispensaries selling seeds in Illinois there would likely need to be changes to our seed to sale software biotrack to allow for the movement of dynamic products like seeds there is no requirement for medical licensees cultivation centers and dispensaries to supply seeds that’s just something they said I didn’t necessarily ask about that I kind of figured that there’s no requirement there’s no requirement to sell anything but you figure if they could they would but I’ve also argued that because developing genetics would require them to basically use part of their canopy why would they also it’s the idea a of if you teach a man to fish why would he buy fish from you anymore so I definitely see you know many reasons why seeds are not in dispensaries but it sounds like one of the main reasons or I guess I don’t even mean to say main reasons a technical reason as to why seeds are not sold in dispensaries because I have had a dispensary or a liy come on my show in the past and they they have described how they did try many different ways ways to sell seeds since they weren’t able to do it the the state approved way they asked well you know the head shops buy seeds and seeds are legal they’re hemp basically or legally and uh can we can we sell seeds and they were told no by the state they were told no by the state that was on my podcast I can’t remember which episode it was um so I’m not going to plug it necessarily right now um but let’s get back to Senate Bill 3941 let’s see if there’s anything I you know I’m sure that there are things that I’m missing for example I don’t know that I require uh talked about the fact that this bill would make it so that physical examinations uh may be required via remote means so in other words this would allow for uh that tella Health certification of your medical cannabis card one of the really weird things about this uh 3941 that I want to show on the screen there’s like several several instances in where they’re adding text where they say beginning on January 1st 2025 quote prescription and nonprescription medicines and drugs include cannabis purchased by a qualified patient designated caregiver or provisional patient as defined in the compassionate use of medical cannabis program Act I I don’t understand exactly what is being added here or why it’s being added here um this says beginning on January 1st 2025 perscription and nonprescription medicines and drugs includes cannabis so I’m not exactly sure what the like motivation behind this is I I will say that this language has appeared in the medical cannabis bill in the past you can see it right here so as as I’m pointing out to you and displaying on my screen you can see additions underlined but anything that’s not underlined already exists in the bill from what I understand and as you can see you can see prescription and non-prescription drug uh medicines and drugs includes medical cannabis purchased from a registered dispensing organization under the compassionate use of medical cannabis program act I don’t understand why this this second part is being added and I think I would have to ask Senator Laura fine in under in order to understand uh the intent uh behind adding these things so there are a few different things I’m sure that I am looking over I’m just doing a quick once over before I move on to the first bill that I actually noticed um we’ll go through that so in this synopsis for the bill the very last thing says makes changes in Provisions concerning medical cannabis containers and I did a search of the law and there I’m not finding anything now you can see my control F here um that’s a command so that you can do a search of the law so you can see container there and I can go through here I personally unless I’m looking over something I’m not seeing anything around the container language that has been modified in fact I even see it here cannabis container means this there’s nothing in this section that has seemingly been modified I could be looking over something um and that is why I will reiterate I have Senate Bill 3941 Linked In the podcast description let’s move on on to Senate Bill 3940 shall we which was just introduced by Senator Kimberly light forward um there’s a few different things going on in this one I’ll be honest this one was both of these were really long all of these cannabis laws are really long which is a rant for another day um I noticed that there was one thing that really stuck out to me in this in this law and I we’ll see if just like the first law if I read it wrong on my first read um there was a part that said that let me copy the language that I have disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act anything regarding that catches my eye um so let’s scroll through there’s two matches what you can see that I’m displaying here is this bill if P seemingly would strike the language that says the name and address of a dispensing organization under this act shall be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act the name and cannabis business establishment address of the person or entity holding each cannabis business establishment license shall be subject to disclosure I don’t understand why that’s being um removed from the law there are other things being removed from the law and I don’t know just at a glance I could see why it would make sense the community I don’t even know what this is about but it has something to do with licenses but anything that’s getting uh removed that has to do with the Freedom of Information Act definitely catches my eye um something that I found interesting that you know might be of concern to cannabis operators there’s a $115,000 fine and this would be cannabis crta certified or um you know under the medical which is both um I’m high right now you can see number six says for each violation of this act or rules adopted under this act by a cannabis testing facility an additional $155,000 fine can be issued I don’t know exactly what the context of these fines being issued are I don’t know why additional fines are being added I just noticed that again you can see the text underlined on this bill uh its new language seemingly um another little bit of new language that I saw which I definitely found interesting was that craft multiple craft cultivators may share a single premises with a single cultivation Center a craft grower may not share a premises with another craft grower outside of a cultivation Center um these rules would be adopted by 2025 and uh yeah you know I know that there’s been proposals in the past for I think what’s called collocating collocation this idea I’ve never heard this particular idea of uh you know a craft grower partnering with a cultivation Center I’ve always heard the idea of like a bunch of craft Growers getting together and kind of having all of their operations on the same property but this is basically it sounds like uh accomplish accomplishing a similar idea so uh so yeah that that’ll be interesting to see you know if this bill becomes law that that that could be a thing you know and maybe that could be a Lifeline for some of these craft cultivators I don’t know I noticed that there is a new section for rules concerning the application of pesticides uh within one year after the effective date of this act if it were to become law it says the department I’m guessing the Department of Agriculture shall adopt rules prohibiting the application of pesticides to cannabis plants in the flowering stage in a craft grower facility there’s also a section for the same uh concept except in a cultivation facility so in other words they are adding new rules concerning the application of pesticides in the flowering stage uh which is a topic I’ve I’ve covered on the podcast in the past another part I saw I’ll just do a quick search so you can see the language here um and if folks are tuning in right now live on Instagram this episode will release uh probably later tonight um so you can see the visuals if if you’d like uh I’ll also link the podcast or the the bill notes in the podcast description this section of the law says that the Department of Agriculture may not issue an agent identification card if the applicant is delinquent and filed any required tax return or paying any amounts owed to the state just mentioning it because it’s new it’s new in the law I mean I think I’ve seen this actually for other licensed um professions I think in the past we went through like an idfpr disciplinary report and I T I recall that some people were getting their um nursing licenses revoked because they didn’t pay their state taxes I think even some people were getting their dispensing uh licenses like they were just a bud tender getting those revoked because they didn’t pay taxes so I don’t know if this is just like matching parody with the Department of a I have no idea again I’ll just reiterate that this is all new and I’m just covering it so that hopefully uh you know you can do more research and and find out about this stuff if it if it interests you this is um another one that stood out to me I’m going to do a control f for regulation that may establish by rule so both the Illinois Department of idfpr the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the Illinois Department of Agriculture I’ve noticed the same language for both of them I’m just displaying the one for idfpr right now may establish by rule Market protections that protect against unfair business practices including but not limited to price fixing bid rigging boycotts agreements to not compete exclusive wholesale arrangements for cannabis concentrate cannabis flour cannabis infused products and any product that is licensed under the this act to ensure that all licensed types have equal access to the market without unfair competition so um that’s an interesting addition I don’t know what that means uh but again it’s it’s an addition this is a small one I don’t know exactly what this means or if this is just like a clerical addition but it did stand out to me the Department of Agriculture May suspend or revoke the license of or impose other penalties upon and they added this part cannabis testing facilities that’s what they added this is the rest that I’m going to read is old cultivation centers craft Growers infuser organizations Transportation organizations and their principal officers agents in charge and agents for violations of this act and any rules adopted under this act so they’re adding just to recap that cannabis testing facilities under that section of the law which would be if you’re listening and want to look it up I mean I’m displaying it right now but it’s 410 ilcs 705 uh five I 10 it would be dashb in this 3940 that we’re looking at which I’ll again have Linked In the podcast description that is really what stood out to me in these bills I am sure as I think I’ve said multiple times throughout this episode that there’s something that I might be missing these are just my first reads I’m not a legal professional so you know this is my Layman understanding that you’re hearing and as you heard through this this episode I even read one and I thought I read it a certain way and then I read it a second time and I was like oh that’s actually what it’s saying so I encourage you to read this for yourself that’s another reason that I link this in the podcast description because it’s possible that I’m reading it wrong right have you ever gotten a text message and you read it I mean you can’t get tonality through a text right completely unrelated example but I’m using it for com comedic purposes um folks let me know what you think about these bills once again Linked In the podcast description dropped today um and I’ll be interested to see if and where they go if they get signed into law um they pretty hefty Hefty they’re big like if I printed this out it’s probably let’s see how many pages it says almost 200 pages on 3940 and let’s see on 3941 is almost 208 pages so 400 Pages total between the two bills I don’t know we’ll see let us know what you think we’ll see you on the next episode of the Cole memo take care