SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — State lawmakers are back in Springfield for lame duck session this weekend, and hemp regulation is one of the top issues on their plate.
Last month, Gov. JB Pritzker demanded the Illinois House pass a plan to crack down on the sale of intoxicating hemp products. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle know there is a growing number of stores with unregulated THC products putting consumers at risk.
This proposal would ban packaging designed to look like food products and prohibit marketing targeted to children. It could also impose the same taxing and testing requirements the state has in place for recreational marijuana products.
Intoxicating hemp would only be allowed to be sold to customers 21 and older at licensed dispensaries. Over 9,000 cases of Delta-8 poisoning have been reported nationwide, and nearly half of those cases involved children. Three elementary school-aged children in Chicago were hospitalized in early December after becoming severely ill from eating gummy edibles.
"Every day that these products are on our shelves, we risk the health of another child or another adult," Pritzker said.
The legislation could ban packaging designed to look like food products and prohibit marketing targeted to children.
However, the Illinois Healthy Alternatives Association believes the plan would destroy the hemp industry and devastate local farms, small businesses and consumers. The organization argued the change could criminalize currently legal hemp products, conflict with federal hemp production guidelines and lacks subject matter input from the hemp industry.
Social equity cannabis license holders hope to see House Bill 4293 reach Pritzker's desk as soon as possible. The coalition of Black, brown and women-owned cannabis businesses is urging lawmakers to rein in the gray market and create regulations similar to the adult-use cannabis market. They stressed Saturday that many minority-owned dispensaries have been pushed aside and ignored in favor of hemp shops selling identical and unregulated products at lower prices.
"As responsible cannabis license holders, we have invested significant resources, time and effort to comply with the regulations and standards," the coalition wrote to lawmakers. "We adhere to strict protocols for cultivation, processing and distribution to ensure the safety and well-being of our consumers and the integrity of this industry. Consumers pay cannabis taxes, among the highest in the nation, to support grant programs that fund important programs for our communities. The unregulated market faces no such rules and supports no such programs even though they sell identical products, most of which are not even produced in Illinois."
Yet, the Hemp Business Association said the bipartisan plan would ban virtually all hemp-derived products that are legal under federal law. They claim the legislation fails to address online sales of hemp products to minors from out-of-state companies.
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