Brandon Johnson often speaks of his concern for the welfare of Chicago’s children, usually in the context of seeking more taxpayer money for Chicago Public Schools and supporting higher wages and more hiring of members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

So it was a bad look indeed when Chicago’s mayor spent a healthy amount of what little remains of his political capital to stop state lawmakers from taking action against unregulated purveyors of potent hemp products that have sent numerous city kids to the hospital after what could accurately be described as overdosing.

Johnson won a rare victory in Springfield Monday and bested a frequent adversary, Gov. JB Pritzker, who aggressively lobbied Illinois House members to approve a bill the state Senate had endorsed nearly unanimously months ago. As the week began, there appeared to be enough House votes to clear the measure in the lame-duck session before the new General Assembly takes their seats. But an eleventh-hour lobbying push by Johnson and supporters in the Chicago delegation peeled off enough Democratic votes to kill the legislation and force the governor and his supporters to start all over again in the new session.

And, why? What was behind the mayor’s intense concern? It most definitely wasn’t the welfare of Chicago’s kids, who continue to have ready access to gummies and the like, infused with synthetic marijuana and sold in vape shops, gas stations, convenience stores and other locations, many of them near schools.

Instead, Johnson’s progressive allies justified continuing to put Chicago kids at risk by singing a familiar refrain: the need for more revenue to support a bloated city government as federal pandemic dollars are spent and the local economy remains moribund. The mayor sees intoxicating hemp as a business ripe for new taxes; the state legislation Pritzker supported effectively would have banned these potent synthetic THC offerings such as delta-8 to give lawmakers time to establish a regulatory regime keeping this stuff away from minors and ensuring we know what’s actually in these products.

Ald. William Hall, 6th, a staunch mayoral ally whom Johnson has tasked with sourcing more tax revenue, told the Tribune he thought Pritzker was motivated by hindering Johnson’s progressive agenda rather than seeking to protect children, an outrageous accusation. In a statement Tuesday, Johnson said he wanted to balance “concerns related to minor consumption” with supporting “entrepreneurs and municipalities” and that he was in favor of regulation of some sort. Eventually.

Translated, Johnson’s neutral-sounding language really amounted to something along these lines: I’ve got the city of Chicago’s budget to manage, and shutting off one of the few areas of higher taxation available to me takes precedence over all else. Including the health and safety of children.

In 2023, five students at Uplift Community High School in Uptown were hospitalized after ingesting gummies from a neighborhood smoke shop. Well over a dozen states have banned delta-8 THC. What are you waiting for, Mr. Mayor? A teenager to die?

For this mayor, apparently, growth in sales of unregulated synthetic THC is considered “economic development.”

A Pritzker spokesman, expressing the governor’s disappointment with the failure of legislation he’d made a high priority, said Pritzker “will always put people, especially children, over politics and profits.” The spokesman didn’t call out the mayor and his supporters by name, but the message was clear. Those children Johnson loves to embrace when he’s banging the drum for more taxes and spending were an afterthought when it came to ensuring potent gummies can continue to be peddled near schools with impunity.

In a press appearance Tuesday, Pritzker was extremely critical of House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who refused to call the bill, apparently because it hadn’t obtained a strong enough majority within his Democratic caucus. “We know that the vast majority of Democrats were in favor of it, and the vast majority of Republicans were in favor,” Pritzker said. “So the fact that didn’t get called, a bipartisan bill to safeguard the people of the state of Illinois, is a tragedy.”

This page has expressed support for the bill the mayor (and Welch) helped torpedo, with the full knowledge that the legal cannabis and unregulated hemp industries are asking policymakers to intervene in a commercial battle. We believe there’s potentially a place for intoxicating hemp products that undergo the same sort of rigorous licensing to which cannabis dispensaries are subject and are held to similar regulations.

We also believe the best way to bring those hemp interests to the table in earnest is to stop the illicit and dangerous business practices in which they’re currently engaged while negotiations occur.

The hemp lobby has flexed its muscle by getting enough House members to kill a bill that passed the state Senate on a 54-1 vote. Fifty-four to one. What incentive is there for an industry that just saw how easily it can manipulate revenue-desperate Chicago politicians to come to the table in good faith?

Johnson risks having the future overdose death of a Chicago child on his conscience. God forbid.

Is whatever few millions city coffers eventually see from this gambit really worth it, Mr. Mayor?

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