This article was republished with permission from Crain’s Chicago Business.
A bill to regulate hemp products aimed at curbing synthetic marijuana appears dead for now in the state Legislature, failing to get enough support to be called for a vote.
It’s a rare political setback for Gov. JB Pritzker, who made the bill a priority and personally urged members of the House of Representatives to approve it during the lame duck session this week before a new General Assembly is sworn in.
“Gov. Pritzker is disappointed that lawmakers failed to take bipartisan, common-sense action to protect children and the public from unregulated and untested hemp products,” the governor’s office said in a written statement.
The effort to regulate hemp products produced a high-stakes political battle that resulted in Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson taking opposite sides, personally working the General Assembly over the weekend to drum up support.
The bill was passed by the Illinois Senate during the regular session in the spring, but it wasn’t called for a vote in the House because it wasn’t clear the legislation had 60 Democratic votes needed to pass.
When House Democrats caucused this afternoon, it became clear the 60 votes were not there. Speaker Chris Welch delivered the news to Pritzker tonight.
The measure would have required intoxicating hemp products to be sold by state-licensed cannabis dispensaries in an effort to keep them out of the hands of children after a couple of high-profile incidents in which students from Chicago schools were treated at hospitals after ingesting unregulated products. The bill also would have required testing and labeling hemp products, as well as restrictions on marketing and packaging. Some intoxicating hemp products have been packaged to look like candy.
Marijuana and hemp come from essentially the same plant, but hemp has very little of the chemical THC associated with the high from marijuana. The 2018 Farm Bill allowed production of hemp with 0.3% THC or less, but people quickly began concentrating it to create synthetic marijuana, often known as Delta 8.
More than a dozen states have enacted bans or regulations.
Unlike traditional marijuana, Delta 8 isn’t required to be tested, nor is it taxed in the same way as marijuana. Recreational cannabis carries state and local excise taxes of more than 30% beyond the standard sales tax.
While unlicensed synthetic gummies, vapes and other items sold at smoke shops, convenience and gas stations were the target, companies that sell other hemp-related products said the regulations would have put them out of business.
Johnson, who has proposed taxing hemp businesses, urged legislators not to support the bill, seeking more time to regulate the industry and accommodate public-safety concerns. He argued for maintaining a revenue option for “both the state and local municipalities at a time in which everybody is trying to find more revenue to continue to fund government,” a source in the mayor’s office told Crain’s today.
It wasn’t hard to find legislators who had small businesses in their districts selling CBD and other products who worried about collateral damage if they went under. As House Democrat put it, “Everyone is in favor of regulating it and taxing it, but the (regulations) will shut down good actors as well as bad actors.”
Rep. LaShawn Ford, a West Side Democrat who opposed the bill that was passed by the Senate, has proposed a different regulatory scheme for Delta 8.
“The (hemp) industry has been asking to be regulated, but this is a prohibition,” he says. “My recommendation has always been to have a two-tier system like we have for wine and spirits. We need to clean it up, tax it and label it, like cannabis. (Delta) is here. We can’t put it back in the bottle.”
Justin Laurence contributed.
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