Episode 98 – Quick Illinois Legislative Recap

Get the latest on cannabis and hemp legislation in Illinois, in this quick ~15 minute episode.

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The auto-generated transcript is available below.

[Music] in this episode of the Cole Memo I’ll be giving a short legislative recap in short nothing happened this set with related to cannabis and hemp legislation honestly you could stop the show right now if you wanted to but I’m going to peel the page back and give you a little bit a little bit of details and I’m going to try to keep it under 15 minutes folks you’re tuned in to the Cole memo my name is 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 Cole 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 if you’re not listening to this episode of the Cole memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode a little bit later than our patrons to become a patron go to the memo.com patreon it only costs $3 a month and it allows you to get instant access to our episodes as they release you can also support our show at the memo do.com ssupport once again that’s the memo.com support you can make a onetime monthly or yearly contribution of your choice and one of the best ways to support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow the 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 best friend today is May 30th 2024 and yesterday May 29th the Illinois House of represent atives adjourned around 5 a.m. can you believe that they were working through the night and there were three measures that ultimately did not make it through the house after Senate passage according to WBEZ Chicago a measure which was opposed by pritzker’s office that would have made key for reforms to the Illinois prison review board did not make it through also an Omnibus C Canabis measure and another measure that would have banned hemp products like Delta 8 state representative lesea Ford said both the Cannabis and hemp measures didn’t have the required 60 votes to pass once again that’s basically the bulk of this episode but right now what I’m going to do is peel back the page and tell you some details you may not have heard or you may have heard some of these have been reported in the media so really quick Ace the alliance for cannabis Equity released their legislative proposals for 2024 I first shared them on January 22nd 2024 I’ll paste I’ll give a link for this entire article in the podcast description or in the show notes uh so you can check this out if you’d like to but here are the proposals and these were proposals for further consideration they weren’t necessarily on the docket I guess per se is high priority all of these other listed items were so you got employee badging providing tax relief to registered Illinois medical patients at any dispensary in the state not only at the 55 medical dispensaries and so much more you’ve got things like allowing physical examinations to be performed uh using tele medicine in other words being able to remotely certify for medical cannabis one big provision that we’ll talk about here in a moment was the idea that they were going to remove odor prooof container from the crta which would reduce risk of criminalization for patients and all adults that use cannabis so let’s talk about these two measures that I actually just mentioned providing tax relief to Illinois registered medical cannabis patients and the odor prooof container so ultimately most of these legislative priorities made it into a bill that was House Bill 2911 now unfortunately some Provisions like for example increasing the patient plant count limit from five plants were not included in that provision however I would say most of these Provisions were addressed in some form or another so ultimately from what I had heard once again House Bill 2911 was being referred to as the Cannabis Omnibus Bill and it contains several Provisions that Advocates and Industry participants had been pushing for those were those Provisions that I was referring to from the first article I displayed and despite its support base the bill had encountered opposition from influential stakeholders according to Illinois cannabis Equity Coalition Green Thumb Industries a licensed cannabis operator is actively opposing the measure due to a provision relating to medical cannabis patients as a result cic’s calling for a boycott on GTI also the Illinois sheriff’s Association raised concerns about the Cannabis Omnibus Bill citing language that related to the odor of cannabis isa’s reservations regarding this element of the bill would maintain the criminalization of cannabis in Illinois and this move has yet to stimulate a a lot of conversations among the states cannabist enthusiasts and media circles I feel it’s largely gone unreported so if you’d like to learn more about the odor prooof cannabis language why it exists and how it impacts people you can check out this article that I’m displaying right now you can see a few links attorney gal htra which is a very well-respected defense attorney hosted an event on how to transport cannabis and he talks about this issue of odor prooof and how it could affect you I’ve also discussed this subject with cannabis defense attorney Evan Bruno which from what I understand he helped to write that language in conjunction with the Illinois State Bar Association so that it could be included in House Bill ultimately House Bill 2911 I believe it was originally in a different Bill and so Jim kek a representative for the Illinois sheriff’s Association voiced his opposition to the language that would address this issue to satisfy the objections raised by police the odor-proof language was added back to the bill and as I mentioned earlier Green Thumb Industries has been receiving a lot of lack according to the Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition GTI lobbyists worked to block their bill and ultimately remove the tax discount for medical patients from the language from what I understand this language was officially removed via an amendment and ultimately Ace and any other groups that were originally proponents of this bill are still proponents of this bill uh but they are not going away quietly they have asked for people to boycott GTI and their dispensaries and their products so I had reached out to GTI for a response I did get a hold of somebody from GTI it was over the holiday weekend and ultimately they told me they would get back to me over after the holiday weekend they did not get back to me but they did post a statement or at least provide a statement to the Chicago Tribune I’ll read it now Green Thumb issued a statement that it has always supported patient access to Legal cannabis we have a history of championing patients including leading advocacy efforts to ensure patients could access their products during the pandemic and most recently preserve curbside services for patients the proposed measure house bu 2911 G GTI said included language that was neither operationally viable nor comprehensive enough for what Illinois patients deserve such as requiring patient Lanes or offering delivery services Illinois legislators recognize the concerns and will continue working on this with the goal of passing it during veto session this fall they say I’m not sure what they mean by requiring patient Lanes offering delivery services seem pretty clear but patient Lanes I don’t know if they mean for side pickup because they mentioned that earlier in their statement or or what exactly they’re referring to I don’t know if they’re referring to the idea that patients get priorities at at priority at many dispensaries which means that they get to hop the line over adult use customers uh from what I understand though that is actually not part of the law that is just part of manyi dispensar standard operating procedure from what I do understand understand though House Bill 2911 it would have codified curbside for all and it would have given priority to medical patients so technically that would have been the only priority for medical patients that was codified in the law from what I understand so on the other side of the vence that was basically the Cannabis Omnibus Bill um as I stated at the beginning of the podcast both the Cannabis and hemp measures didn’t have the required 60 votes to pass so that was all of the information that I can basically think of right now with regard to the Cannabis omnius also with regard to hemp it was basically just that apparently it didn’t have the required 60 votes to pass again I was in Springfield that day uh not the 29th but the 28th and I you know I spoke to many House Representatives and they did didn’t seem confident at least from the people that I spoke to which was a fair number of folks that they would be voting yes and so as Lesean Ford said in WBEZ Chicago it seemed that both measures didn’t have the required 60 votes to pass and that’s ultimately why they didn’t get brought up and I would even say that’s why these reforms to the Illinois prison review board didn’t get brought up because it’s a measure that was opposed by pritz office so on one hand for these two issues you don’t have the support and on the other hand support from the house and on the other hand you do not have the support from Governor ritzer’s office so that’s basically the size of it nothing has changed nothing will change for the foreseeable future the status quo will continue that was the end of this legisl ative session I always joke it’s the most wonderful time of year and it sounds like the next legislative session which I’m hearing is called veto session it will be during this fall um folks I hope you found value in this episode of the Cole memo what are your thoughts comment below I will be candid I’m still learning so when I say things like I’m hearing it’s called veto session I’ve also heard that this session is uh this upcoming session would be lame duck because of like the elections that are occurring and the people that are running and so it’s uh called a lame duck session and I remember faintly learning about what that is in high school and I’m definitely going to Google what it is after I get off this podcast I say all of this candidly to let you know that I’m still learning as I go and I am by no means a journalist or studied in any of this I’m just a passionate cannabis advocate that is doing my best to try and bring about what I believe is Meaningful reform in this space and at the same time share with all of you everything that I’m hearing and learning so that we can work together uh to make our society better I know that sounds very idealistic and hopeful but that’s truly the goal just to get on learn share what I’ve learned ask questions and on that note once again if you have any questions that I didn’t necessarily address or if I said anything unclear or if I said anything incorrect please comment below let me know please give this video a thumbs up and always feel free to reach out atth memo.com cont folks stay well and and enjoy your summer take care

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