Episode 101 – Legislative Recap with CannabisEquityIL.org

In this episode, Douglas Kelly and Peter Contos from Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition join me to recap the most recent legislative session.

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thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Cole memo in this episode we’ll be doing a legislative recap with the Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition once again you’re listening 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 which will take you to our website which will display transcript for this episode in theat 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 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 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 later than our patrons to become a patron go to the co memo.com patreon another way to support our show is at the memo.com support our show is funded by listeners like you 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 or share it with your best friend friend your engagement and support is appreciated today is June 11th 2024 and I’m sitting down with Doug Kelly and Peter Kos Doug why don’t you go ahead and remind my listening audience who you are and who you’re with hello first of all I just want to say thank you Cole for giving us the opportunity to be here today and use your platform um to continue to spread the word my name is Douglas K executive director of cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition and we continue to fight for Equity Justice and inclusion in the Cannabis space and I’ll pass it over to Peter hello everybody uh Peter here with the Coalition I’m our deputy director I helped work on a lot of different policy work as well as grant writing um and anything I can do to help support the work of the Coalition yep and folks I’m displaying the website right now I’ll have it in the podcast description it’s cannabis equity. org I just want to say that you should get involved and it looks like there’s a link right in the top right hand corner to do just that it’s a great way to get involved in all the happenings of the Illinois cannabis community and more um we’re starting today after a recent legislative session I think that’s the best way to maybe kick off this conversation where do you all want to start today does that sound a a good starting point absolutely might as well just hop right in and um kind of give you guys a update of where things stands right now and the things that should have happened and but didn’t happen and um trying to give you a little bit of a timeline of what we seen while we’re in screen field um and just how everything kind of imploded um so yeah D you want to hop in on the beginning part yeah I’m happy to take the temp in on this um and so again our goal is to give everybody the timeline of how this all happen so it really goes back to you know last year 2023 um Doug and myself spent a lot of time in Springfield working to you know talk about cannabis you know lawmakers really hadn’t talked about weed in years A lot of them um and so you know really socializing the issue talking about why it’s still important to to follow up and pass you know additional legislation um and so really going back you know 12 months time we thought we were able to to put together a package of of um you know the Cannabis Omnibus package which is a piece of legislation with a a bunch of different stuff in it you know from expanding the medical program supporting social Equity businesses um supporting folks who have criminal records get into the industry um and a whole lot of other stuff that we don’t have time to get into um that bill unfortunately you know was kind of Hit the breaks last spring um you know because of a lot of different issues that we don’t also don’t have time to get into today um and so that takes us to to this year and so you know Doug and myself are back in Springfield the entire session from January to May um and you know really in in early May is when we saw a lot more you know um action because you know we really you know we were down there and you know Cole’s been been on our policy meetings but anybody who’s listening and who who doesn’t join our our community policy meetings you know we would come into those meetings and we were like well I wish I had something to share at all good bad or ugly but we have nothing and so we really got into early May kind of like well what’s GNA happen and then all of a sudden you know Senator lightford um leader lightford who represents the Western subur of Chicago um she started to convene these stakeholder meetings with um you know herself with u you know the Illinois House of Representatives um as well including all of their staff members uh including groups like The Coalition including um the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois um you know so a lot of different voices at the table um to talk through these issues and and basically all we did you know we had three of these meetings two or three of these meetings and we just went down the list of what was in the bill from last year that didn’t pass what can we all agree to what changes need to be made technically you know we’re not going to debate substance right now there wasn’t enough time for that and so we you know we’re all right you know we’ll take what we can get and so um we had those meetings um and we entered the last week of legislative session you know the the week before Memorial Day um and while while the bill hadn’t been Advanced at that point um we were told very directly that this you know the content of what’s in there is good folks feel good with what’s in there um it’s just a matter of when it gets voted on and that last week is where where all goes off the rail so I’ll pass it over to you yeah so like Peter was saying so we were there you know all of a sudden made turn hits and now everybody just gramling trying to get some stuff done um and we really thought we had uh put together a very good package like everybody had bought in on it um and even the lawmaker was like we think this this this should happen um and then it just just all went left in a in a matter of days we were there until that Friday right before Memorial Day uh and at that point everything SP still good from from what we were being told like um it seem to be agreement from from everybody this is going to happen then we go to bed we wake up Saturday morning and that’s when GTI decided um they didn’t want one of the things that was in the legislation which was for the medical patients to be able to go to any dispensary to get their medicine and get um the tax benefits from it um which was agreed upon in every meeting leading up to that GTI not one said um we don’t support this you know what I mean and then for them to um hire a bunch of lobbyists um that Saturday uh to block it and we allow one organization to that would have helped 140,000 medical patients in one fail swoop um and at that point everything was up in air just everything went off the rails at that point and we we was just in a we woke up in shock like what the all the text messages started coming in emails and and you know we we reacting at this point um on two years work for hard work um one organization pretty much derailed it for everybody and this helped the Transporters and medical patients it was going to give the dispensaries the ability to bring on more investors to help raise money it it was so many good things the badging things um all the stuff was in that bill and it literally um collapsed if I could add T medicine was in there which would have been really helpful for patients curbside yep uh with with medical patient priority I don’t know if people realize this but that is huge right there that little part I know that if you go to medical dispensaries across the state you might get priority But realize this folks I actually just learned that that’s not part of the law this would have made that part of the law at least with regard to curb side so that’s a big loss and even for the patients that’s you know immune deficiency they wouldn’t had to go into aor office to be around a lot of other people they could have did it um um via tal so this really really um hurt um the medical patients um not giving them accessibility for two for the first three years I was a medical patient um but I got to a point I was like it just don’t make sense if I still have to drive 50 to 60 miles to get what I want when there’s three dispensaries Within 10 minutes of my house that have what I need but I just can’t utilize it um that’s why um it’s not growing um the medical patient list is not growing um and people are actually dropping out because of the accessibility issues um I don’t understand how the state not see some of these things and um and then just pick the obvious things which most of the stuff that we had in there was just obvious things that need to be done it’s been on there for two years and it went left yeah some of this stuff would have helped uh people in the industry as well it would have streamlined the online application and badging process for prospective workers it would have increased the camp craft grow canopy space to 14 square feet 14,000 square fet immediately uh it would have allowed for them to do that immediately yeah a lot of good stuff in here and you know again there’s a lot of stuff in there that we could talk for for hours and and days about one of the last thing I’ll that’s that’s in that bill I think is really interesting um is the testing the second to last item on there which is the registration of new testing Labs um for folks who who have you know been following this very closely one thing that’s continued to be an issue is the lack of of testing capacity in the state um there’s a small handful of companies who offer lab testing for for Growers and processors um and we know there’s very there’s no diversity in those labs and so um the other thing this would have this bill would have done is is allow people who have the qualifications to set up a lab um you know bring you know you know diversify this this very specific um you know subset of the industry um and really you know again creating new opportunities for folks um in the name of of Public Safety making sure products are safe um but unfortunately again because uh and we’ll get to kind of where the the bill officially gets derailed um in a second but um yeah know that’s one of the other really important pieces that was in there um yeah cool yeah well uh we can we can move right on to that uh I don’t have any other questions I just wanted to since Doug was listing some of them I wanted to give yall some shout outs because I know they would resonate with uh the community but also some people in the industry thanks yeah cool so so we’ll go into so further again we’re going into the you know chronological order so right now we’re talking about you know we’re into like Saturday May 25th which again supposed to be the Saturday of Memorial Day everyone’s supposed to be enjoying a holiday weekend um we’re not enjoying the holiday weekend because we’re working um we are on the phone you know getting um reports about what is going on um you know again verifying that it was GTI really acting alone in this um in in this kind of crusade to to harm medical patients um um and so we you know really you know many people might have seen on social media we had a calls to action starting that day asking folks you know don’t let GTI win you know make you know call your lawmakers specifically your Senator Senator’s office um and ask them to to include that medical patient expansion that was already decided you know that was not something you know even though we we went so hard on social media for 24 hours that was decided Well before we got any phone calls and so um that was incredibly disappointing to to to have to kind of accept on Sunday I was like well [ __ ] they’re doing it um on that Sunday um this is now May 26 the Senate the Illinois state senate did approve that bill as well as the the bill that would have addressed the hemp issue um the key difference is you know again they they you know passed the bill without that medical tax expansion um we can’t give anybody a good explanation as to why they would let this happen other than that GTI spooked Senate leadership you know they sent so many people at Senate leadership saying this isn’t agreed upon this is wrong this is going to create a bigger issue you know this is poorly written and they they bought it unfortunately um again if if we had anything to do with it we would have made sure that didn’t happen um but this is way above us um and so that bill advances through the Senate executive committee and through the Senate that Sunday I believe was a 51 to5 vote you know everybody was very supportive of it it got a lot of support on the floor in debate um because again a lot of the stuff that’s in the bill is great this is all really good policy and people recognize that um and so that takes us into Monday which is actually a memorial day that is when the lawmakers did actually take a break that the Senate once they finished Sunday night they were done so they they walked away from it Sunday night they they left home and or they left Springfield and went home the Illinois house and again this is very complicated so Cole if this is coming off is is unclear please please let me know and we’ll back up so the Illinois Senate they did all this business first they got done before Memorial Day they went home the Illinois house they took Sunday off took Monday off and came back to Springfield first thing Tuesday um we came down to Springfield that Tuesday as well to make sure we were you know in their faces and make sure they they they knew they had some work to do to get this bill passed um to be clear at this point the medical patient stuff was removed and that was not going to get added again the Senate was done so we couldn’t change that so what we had to do was pick up the pieces and move what we could um but unfortunately um because of just all of the kind of larger um chaos for lack of a better word um that relates you know to the to the state budget you know the state budget is a very complicated you know $50 billion dollar plus you know Behemoth of of of legislation you know 3,000 plus Pages um that’s a lot to contend with and you know there’s a lot of politics involved uh folks you know we definitely encourage people to check out you know Capital facts um there’s a couple of of really valuable um reports that have been written just kind of how the legislative session ended again we’re talking about the Illinois house they spent all of that Tuesday after Memorial Day you know basically you know locked in the chamber working they worked through the night worked through midnight they ended up a journey that would be that Wednesday May 29th at about 5 5:30 in the morning they spent that whole night just trying to get the budget passed um they had to take three votes to in order to get all the votes um you know they had to vote three times in order for enough people to vote for the budget which is unheard of in Illinois um our lawmakers are used to ruling with an iron fist if they say vote Yes they will get their yes votes um and so for that to there to be so much um difficulty passing the budget is like a huge huge deal um and not I mean um that did not work in our favor to be very clear and so um because of what had happened with the budget there was so much chaos so much just like back and forth politics they just didn’t call the bill they just wouldn’t call the bill Y and we we not here to we don’t want to talk about him we want to keep this conversation um you know to to cannabis but that also played a key role in in this as well um we did a great job of separating the issues having them in two different bills um because that’s what derailed it last year so we was like we gonna separate these issues we gonna Focus cannabis over here and hemp over here so if pemp don’t go cannabis goes and because of the struggle of getting a budget um path um they didn’t call either one so now um both were left in limbo and it’s just it’s really disheartening on the Cannabis side because you know we were told that we’ll work on it over the summer and then probably bring it back up in veto but we know this is the election year and this kind of stuff tends to never happen um so now we going it’s going to be another whole year without any of these people getting relief and I forgot to mention also it would have gave the dispensaries another 180 days to get up to get up um going and now that’s taken off the table now come July um people are SP might have to start giving their license back so this is why you know it was so critical that these things get cross the the finish line um it just hurts everybody um the Transporters had some stuff in there that would have literally helped them with the the long deliveries and having to take stuff back the very same day which was causing a lot of overtime and drivers being fatigued um from their long days they would have had 72 hours um was it 72 or 48 Peter 48 yeah 48 hours to get the stuff back so it just really really hurt a lot of different areas of this bill that would would have provided release and actually start giving the Transporters some business as you know they are getting they really got to show the end of this whole stick like most of their license are useless let let’s just call it spade a spade um they have no work and only a handful of individuals um are getting work from The multi-state Operators and in that meeting they literally said that they never intended to give social Equity people transport so why did he even have this license then knowing knowing this information so uh it’s it’s a lot of layers to this yeah and uh you know not trying to over anything but just I thought maybe to put us back on track I contacted GTI on that Sunday I did get a hold of a representative who told me they were out of the office for the holiday weekend they’d get back to me uh after the holiday weekend they ultimately didn’t get back to me they published a statement uh in the I guess they provided a statement to the Chicago Tribune because that’s where I saw their statement and ultimately I shared it what where do we go from here did you want to touch on this or um I I would like to quickly touch on this before we get into the next steps yep um I think the the main thing for us you know you know we want to be you know our whole thing is is transparency and accountability um and so you know we um take a lot of issue with with the organization saying oh we Champion patience we care about social Equity you know when when we have we have the receipts we saw what y’all just did um you know one thing about the Coalition you know again we we thrive on transparency um one thing I I seriously question is you know where do the resources come from for GTI to do this um because again this is not free this work is you know unless you’re me and Doug who do this work for free um nobody down there in Springfield is doing this work for free these are tens of thousands of dollars um per month that people are spending on lobbyists um and you know we look at programs like gti’s good green Grant which the Coalition is transparently we’re we we received a grant in 2021 that helped us start our expungement program that was awesome but that money you know is is has completely dried up and GTI is like oh well you know crying broke but you have tens of thousands of dollars to spend over a holiday weekend on lobbyists to again har medical patients and to protect your Monopoly um and so you know for them to put out a statement like oh well we we care about this you know it shows they have no shame they have no self-awareness of of what they’ve done um and whether that’s his Executives who made this decision or if there’s a conscious choice made by by the larger Corporation um everybody needs to be held accountable this is completely unacceptable and um yeah we just take a lot of issue with with them you know framing this as oh well we care you know very paternalistically like oh well we careed you just didn’t write the bill well enough or we we just think you need to wait a little bit longer like n you guys have had a a a strangle hold on this industry for far too long and and that time needs to come yeah and it’s not like they wasn’t included in the conversation so if they thought there was a problem with it they never stepped up and said hey here we got a red flag um let’s talk about this not once um did they do that um which is even more like tonee what the language they just put out saying that how they support medical patients when they stop them from get tell health and curbside and um being able to shop at any dispens to get their medicine that don’t sound like help to me yeah just to feel their pockets and if I could just before Peter you take us I think you were saying maybe to our next steps this isn’t the first time that GTI specifically has reportedly uh opposed both this measure which would have create allowed Med medical patients to shop at any dispensary or some of these other measures this is an old report from grown in in 2020 and this was one of the first reports where GTI reportedly opposed opposition and you can see it right here this would have freed medical patients from registering with a specific dispensary that actually may have been a slightly different rule because back in the day now that I’m reading that back in the day you had to register with a dispensary um still though these were Provisions that were seen as needed by social Equity licenses and according to this report a team of lobbyists by Green Thumb industry were hired to stop the Bill’s passage just wanted to bring it up that this isn’t the first time uh they’ve reportedly opposed policies that would have um possibly benefited social Equity licenses absolutely um that’s yeah I I for I failed to to mention it but yes um and and not only here in other states um they they’re doing the same thing and to me like this was supposed to be a social Equity program but obvious this is a mfo program I don’t know how we thought it was going to be Equitable when they they wrote most of the bill um and they wrote it in ways because they they they they knew the complic ations and things was going to happen they understood that 5,000 sare F feet you wasn’t going to get any investors investors to invest in a 5,000 foot draw they you know simple math once you look at it um they understood it was going to take eight to10 million to set up those grows um investors look for a quick return on their Investments not a slow methodical return so it was just little things that were put in the bill that hindsight you look at it was like all this [ __ ] was intentional I’m sorry for my language but all of it was intentional um they knew the Transporters weren’t going to have anything to do because they weren’t going to give it to them it’s just these intentional things that they did um but at the same time our lawmakers continue to allow it to happen we are continue to be forced to sit down and negotiate with these people and over three years it’s the same tactics they agree agree agree until the last day when they don’t agree just the definition of insanity um what we going through right now they continue to force of like we got to bring everybody to the table knowing that one party is going to do something in the end to to harm all the great work and once again we in that same situation Peter I say if I saw you were about to say something I was just going to say that a lot of these specifically GTI but others benefit from the status quo and that’s exactly what is continuing absolutely and yeah I think I think what what I would just want to emphasize is is to what Doug just said we keep doing the same thing over and over again our lawmakers wait till the last week of the session to do with their business and then oh [ __ ] these people have a problem and then they send 10 people to your office and now all of a sudden it’s everybody’s problem um and so you know really we need to reject this as a way of governing as a whole like we should not be passing a 50 plus billion dollar budget a three you know 3,300 page Bill if nobody’s read the damn thing like we should have you know time to you know go through these things and make this work um but again our lawmakers that’s not what they care about they care about you know continuing to hold on to their power um you know continuing to rule the sliver of of Illinois they rule um and keeping this the way it is and so you know just a couple things that we want to share with folks in terms of how how we’re going to move forward so you know we will obviously continue to work throughout the summertime to you know engage our lawmakers make sure they understand what went on last spring and how that could never happen ever again um so we’d encourage folks to join us we’ll make sure that there’s a link in the in the show notes and stuff like that um but the bitly at you know cic policy please sign up join our meetings uh we talk a lot about a lot of different things um but if you want to you know have a hand in in passing this stuff that would be the best place for for you to to to uh join us um the lawmakers did earlier today confirm the legislative veto session which is the next time our lawmakers will all be back in Springfield is confirmed for November um so it’s going to be the two weeks sandwich between the the election and the first week of November um those two weeks that come after that before the week of Thanksgiving so um it’s going to be a very busy period between you know the election finishing up going to Springfield and then Thanksgiving um but we will make sure that you know we do everything we possibly can to get all of this stuff Advanced um when we’re when we’re back in Springfield in in November um you know we talked a lot about what’s what’s in the bill um there’s a lot of good stuff in there one thing that we didn’t talk about at all which um I’m kind of glad we didn’t because I want to put a pin into put it a pin into it now which is included in the bill was um a set of rules around antitrust and it basically say the state of Illinois if they find that a business is operating in a monopolistic you know trying to set up a monopoly trying to um act in an anti-competitive way we would be able to hold them accountable we can create rules to to actually hold them accountable so whether that’s finding them whe it’s taking their licenses away we want to have a very honest conversation with the um you know when this bill passes about what does that look like because in our opinion the state of Illinois um should do everything possible to make sure GTI is held accountable um because ultimately what they did other than screwing medical patients other than screwing social Equity businesses they act you know they’re acting as a monopoly they’re acting to protect their slivery industry which is a far outside anybody you know any of the other you know any social Equity businesses that’s for certain um and it’s completely unacceptable and again it’s illegal in most other Industries we’re a little bit late to make these you know adop these in cannabis um and it’s about time that that we adopt them and and and hold them accountable absolutely got it well um so so yeah next veto session is this fall between then and now what can we do I know one of the things we can do is obviously make great memes and keep people in the loop on what happened and why it’s so bad displaying some memes right now what are some other things we can do to help uh again folks that are listening I’ll have the link in the podcast description so you can join the meetings I’m always there there are a lot of other people there so again if you want to get involved that’s the best way um yeah what are our next steps before we close so we really um let me take a step back like what Peter was saying join us on our policy meetings right now we putting together we’re doing a lot of planning on action we want to take over this summer um we’re not GNA let GTI forget about what they have done um they’re hoping things them down um but no um we’re going to be very very active um actions against them in some of their big programming that’s coming up um full out boycotts we’re going to continue to post um the boycotts and um and then we gonna do some direct action um but we’re in the planning stages of that and if you really feel strongly about that join us in our meeting help us plan it we want to make this a very SU uccessful summer and let this be noticed to other organizations that this is not acceptable and the same thing is going to happen to you if you do this if you pull a stunt like this um so we are very excited about some of the things we’re putting together um to do this work this summer um so if you guys are want to help um join us the fight is real um and we gonna fight until every license is given out um for Equity Justice and inclusion in the space you want to talk about some other stuff Peter or what we doing I think we we covered most of it again join us on our Monday policy meetings follow us on social media especially Instagram can Equity we’re going to keep posting graph Graphics about how you can plug in on the policy stuff on the boycott um again definitely encourage folks you know um post those graphics on the boycott make sure you’re you know tagging GTI you know uh hash boycot GTI um Doug mentioned it but specifically GTI is hosting their miracle and mundeline concert in September they’re trying to do a whole whole you know press Blitz about that comment on those posts boycott GTI um comment you know tag the artists who are scheduled to perform there Whiz Khalifa um slightly stupid there’s a lot of you know bigname acts that could really make a difference if they you know stood in solidarity with us um and stood against these companies that are again and just displaying endless greed um endless you know ultimately this is racist and this is ableist what they’re doing um and so we need to make sure that collectively as a community we all have a role to play uh we all got to step up and and and make sure we’re we’re counted so um the last thing I’ll say is if you’re you have questions about the boycott you’re like hey how do I actually make this right for me because again it looks different for everybody please reach out to us again shoot us a DM on social media send us an email whatever is best for you we will get in touch with you because you know we again this only works if we’re all on the same page we’re all beating the same drum um shouting the same message and so again we want everybody um all your support um reach out to us if you have questions absolutely last thing I want to say is we can’t let our lawmakers off the hook neither right they’re complicit with this whole thing and they continue to allow these things to happen um it wasn’t like we didn’t have enough Vats to pass it um it just didn’t get called um we got to be better than that we we got to do better um this hurt a lot of people um and it’s going to continue to hurt for another whole year um if we don’t force them to do what they need to do it’s time time we stop asking like asking is not getting us nothing this time we start demanding and really stepping up the pressure like make it make sense well said well said well I just want to thank Doug Peter and everybody at cic for everything you do for the community of course we talked a lot about cannabis stuff and which you play a huge role in but you also do a lot of different things that are related to cannabis like expungements but so many other things so folks I just want to put a plugin once again cannabis Equity il.org the links will be in the show notes get involved join the fight and uh let’s make this happen like Doug said it’s it’s time to stop asking it’s time to start doing and that’s what we’re going to do going forward so let’s go guys right let’s go oh yeah thank you Cole y very yep and folks on that note we’ll see you on the next episode of the Cole memo take care

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