Illinois cannabis business owners are pleading for relief from the state’s “steep licensing fees” and “overly burdensome” regulations.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, joining several of those business owners Sunday at a news conference on the Near West Side, urged his colleagues in the Illinois General Assembly to reform the state’s recreational and medical cannabis laws to give social equity licensees a fair playing field in the market.
“Recreational cannabis legalization … was really sold to the General Assembly and the community to end the war on drugs and to help rebuild the communities that were hardest hit,” said Ford, who has long championed social equity efforts in the state’s legal marijuana industry.
“The truth is the dream of being a cannabis business owner in Illinois is falling far short,” said Ford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side in the Legislature.
Patricia Van Pelt, a former state senator who represented parts of the West Side until 2023, also joined Sunday’s news conference. She advocated for legalizing recreational cannabis while she was in office. But she removed herself as a co-sponsor of the legalization bill after news reports on her investments in cannabis-related businesses.
“When I stood and negotiated for this bill, I believed that we were bringing help to the community,” said Van Pelt, who now co-chairs Black Cannabis Operators. “What I’ve seen happen across these last few years has been astonishing to me. We never meant to defund the Black community. We never meant to leave them floundering and trying to survive with no lifeboat and no help.”
Van Pelt listed four “urgent demands” to help the cannabis industry survive and give small-business owners a chance to thrive:
- Put a moratorium on licensing fees and provide a credit for fees paid before the dispensary was operational.
- Provide equitable access to capital and grant funding to “ensure the growth and stability of licensed operators.”
- Amend “overly burdensome” regulations and reduce the “crushing taxes” that drive customers to “illicit markets” or to dispensaries in nearby states with lower tax rates.
- Allow customers with medical cannabis cards to shop at any licensed dispensary.
There is currently no legislation in the works to address these demands, but Ford told the Sun-Times he intends to draft a bill that includes those issues.
Read more at Chicago Sun Times