Politics

Missouri company used hemp in products instead of cannabis

Published

2 years ago

September 15, 2023

[ad_1]

Richard Batenburg Jr. feels deceived and cheated.His cannabis brand, Colorado-based The Clear, has been partnering with a licensed Missouri manufacturer to produce pre-rolled joints. Some were infused with a THC concentrate, or distillate, purchased from a Robertsville-based company called Delta Extraction.When the state issued a recall last month of all products made with the same distillate — a total of 62,000 products — Batenburg’s company was stuck with 90,000 joints taking up space in a Missouri warehouse that he still can’t do anything with.But it’s not just the recall that got under his skin.As Delta Extraction was fighting off their license suspension and the recall by state regulators, the company revealed it had been importing concentrated THC oil made from industrial hemp — which is about four times cheaper to make than marijuana THC concentrate in Missouri.Batenburg had no idea his team was likely buying what he calls a “synthetic” THC — or THC that had been converted from hemp’s CBD using a heavy chemical process — mixed with a small amount of marijuana, while still paying marijuana prices.Even more infuriating than overpaying for hemp, Batenburg said, is that he was unknowingly deceiving his own customers who thought they were getting a pure marijuana product.“They were duping all these compliant operators,” he said. “What they’re doing — from a commerce perspective — it’s criminal. They were probably more surprised than anybody that they weren’t getting caught.”Delta declined comment for this story, citing ongoing litigation.But Delta has fiercely denied any wrongdoing, both in the company’s lawsuit to stop the recall and the administrative hearing to appeal their license suspension.The only reason Batenburg learned about Delta’s hemp process is because the recall sparked litigation, which in turn resulted in dozens of court filings that include emails, testing results, material purchases and a transcript with hours of testimony from the company’s leaders.That’s also how John Lopez, CEO of Old Route 66 Wellness whose brand Bison Infused was also on the recall list, learned about Delta’s use of hemp. His business only bought a small amount of the distillate in April, when there was a dip in supply after Missouri’s recreational marijuana sales began.And that decision has cost him $800,000 in products.While Delta manufactured and sold the distillate, Lopez puts most of the blame on the brand that contracted with Delta to follow a recipe and make the product — Oklahoma-based Conte Enterprise.“We would have never bought it” had his team known it was chemically converted THC from hemp, Lopez said.A spokeswoman for Conte said the company, “stands by the safety and quality of its product. However, it does not comment on pending litigation.”Rachel Herndon, COO of Delta, also defended the product during an Aug. 14 commission hearing.“We bolstered this industry, we supported this industry, and we cut costs low for consumers,” she said. “And we did it all while being in constant communication with the state and believing that our processes were allowed and appropriate. All of our product was tested. And we have no consumer complaints.”Batenburg works with the manufacturer Dark Horse Medicinals to produce his brand. That company is now suing Conte and Delta Extraction to recoup its losses after purchasing nearly $325,000 of distillate in May that went into making about $1 million worth of products.A Missouri judge has already dismissed Delta’s lawsuit against the state to stop the recall, and a commissioner handling the company’s appeal of its license suspension recently denied its request for a stay. A final decision in the appeal is still pending, and the commission will hold a hearing on Sept. 29.As the Delta case winds through the legal system, it offers a rare glimpse into Missouri’s burgeoning cannabis industry, which has been shrouded in secrecy since voters approved medical marijuana in 2018.And the ordeal also brings up a major question for Missouri consumers:How often were they overpaying for what they thought was Missouri-grown marijuana but were actually getting hemp grown somewhere else?

Rebecca Rivas

The Missouri IndependentMissouri voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018 and recreational marijuana in 2022.

What we now knowDelta Extraction is a licensed marijuana manufacturer that specializes in making distillate, a highly potent and pure form of THC oil used for things like vape pens and edibles.On Aug. 2, the state regulating agency suspended Delta Extraction’s license after accusing the company of sourcing untested “marijuana or converted hemp from outside of a Missouri licensed cultivation facility.”Delta is accused by state regulators of “inversion,” or bringing in illegal marijuana products from other states and adding it to their own products in order to keep their production numbers up. But the company argues it hasn’t violated the law because it was importing hemp, a federally legal substance.“As a matter of law, industrial hemp is not marijuana,” according to an Aug. 25 brief Delta’s attorneys filed with the Administrative Hearing Commission. “The Missouri Constitution and the department’s own regulations define marijuana to specifically exclude industrial hemp.”While this type of inversion is illegal in Missouri, it is allowed in Conte’s home state of Oklahoma and others, including Arizona and Wyoming, said attorney Clark Wu, who specializes in hemp and cannabis law and is a partner at the Arizona-based law firm Bianchi & Brandt.“Inversion is not illegal everywhere,” Wu said. “In some states … you can do an inversion. There’s a legal process for introducing hemp-derived products into the cannabis system.”The state issued an administrative hold on the 62,000 products days after the company’s suspension and a full product recall on Aug. 14.According to documents filed in both the lawsuit and appeal, Delta has been selling Conte’s THC distillate for over a year. The majority of the distillate is likely hemp-derived THC-A — a compound of the cannabis plant that isn’t intoxicating until heated — combined with a small amount of Missouri marijuana.The company has sold 700 liters of this concoction since at least July 2022, said Jack Maritz, general manager and lab manager of Delta Extraction, in his Aug.14 testimony before the Administrative Hearing Commission.And it’s sold to 135 Missouri marijuana license holders, with Delta making $20 million since it began offering a hemp-marijuana distillate in April 2022, company leaders said in their testimonies.The 700 liters of oil has the potential to make “millions of packs of edibles,” Maritz said in his testimony.In the state’s initial investigation, regulators found two examples where altogether, Delta Extraction used 9 grams of THC originating from Missouri marijuana, but produced 168,698 grams of distillate.“Delta Extraction, practically speaking, is importing cannabinoids from other states, converting it to THC, and then selling it in the regulated market as if it is Missouri marijuana,” according to a Aug. 22 brief filed by the state in the company’s appeal before the Administrative Hearing Commission. “The distillate, at least in the two unrefuted examples set out above, contains virtually no Missouri cultivated marijuana at all.”Hemp doesn’t naturally have a lot of potentially intoxicating cannabinoids like THC or THC-A. When the Farm Bill of 2018 took hemp off the federally controlled substance list, it unintentionally also gave the green light for people to legally make THC and THC-A from CBD, using various chemicals and heat.Currently, chemically converted THC from hemp is completely unregulated on a federal and state level.Batenburg said he has a personal aversion to the process used by Delta and would never have allowed it in his products had he known it was happening.“I don’t think it’s the same if it’s been tortured to get to the same molecule,” he said.

Rusty Blazenhoff

Flickr Cannabis plants grow under orange sodium lights in a medical marijuana cultivation facility in Oakland, California.

Big profitsDelta is a “white labeling” marijuana manufacturer, Maritz said in his Aug. 14 testimony. This means that cannabis brands contract with the company to make their products using the exact recipes that their customers have come to expect.These arrangements are common for out-of-state brands, such as Conte, that are not licensed to produce or sell marijuana in Missouri.“We’ll fill up cartridges or make products for them and put their packaging on it,” Maritz said.Delta has two brands under which it distributes products — Midwest Magic and Conte — the company said in its lawsuit against the state. Eighty percent of what Delta was producing was the Conte brand that included the hemp-derived THC, Maritz said in his testimony.Conte said in a motion to intervene in Delta’s lawsuit that the companies have mutual agreements concerning “speciﬁc services and trademarks used in cannabis products” that began in February 2022.Across the country, these are typical agreements necessary to “consummate a ‘white-labeling’ relationship,” Wu said.How it often works, he said, is that the licensed marijuana manufacturer charges a fixed fee for each unit of product manufactured or produced under the agreement.However, the state describes the relationship between Conte and Delta as “murky,” because Delta says it has 18 employees, but many of them are on Conte’s payroll.Murky, Wu said, is a “fair statement.”“There are signs of Conte operating as a brand under Delta’s business umbrella,” Wu said.According to Maritz’s testimony and exhibits presented by the state, Delta had been buying THC-A oil since around July 2022.

“As a matter of law, industrial hemp is not marijuana. The Missouri Constitution and the department’s own regulations define marijuana to specifically exclude industrial hemp.”

Delta Extraction attorneys in a filing with the Administrative Hearing Commission

From May 4 to July 26, Delta bought almost 1,700 liters of the hemp-derived THC-A product from Arvida Labs in Fort Lauderdale, according to exhibits in the case.The documents don’t say how much Delta paid for it, and it’s unclear what the proportion of the Arvida oil, rather than marijuana, was in the distillate it sold in Missouri.But according to Maritz’s testimony, it likely had a lot of hemp-derived THC in it.Maritz discussed one instance where Delta took 2,900 grams of marijuana “bud flower material” that it bought from a Missouri cultivator and made a concentrate.“Then we took 4 grams of that concentrate, and we added 38,000 grams, basically, to it,” he said, meaning the hemp-derived oil. “This was our process with Conte.”Delta had 1,100 liters of the Conte-brand distillate in its warehouse the day the company’s license and operations were suspended on Aug. 2, and it was planning on selling it for $12,000 per liter, Maritz said in his testimony.In May, the manufacturer producing Batenburg’s brand bought the distillate for about $16,000 per liter, according to the Dark Horse lawsuit filings. And industry experts say a liter of marijuana distillate at that time went for about $20,000.However, according to a recent Arvida sales quote, a liter of THC-A oil costs much less — around $3,500 — and the price goes down as more is purchased.Looking at these numbers, Batenburg said, “the amount of money they were making is obscene.”

Marketeering Group

FlickrFrom May 4 to July 26, Delta bought almost 1,700 liters of the hemp-derived THC-A product from Arvida Labs in Fort Lauderdale, according to exhibits in the case.

Delta’s defenseDelta is arguing that it has been making these products since 2022 and was never told by state regulators that it couldn’t.“And so that distillate has been distributed throughout the entire state of Missouri,” Maritz said. “We’ve never heard of a failed test or someone getting sick or anything like that. So since we got approval from the department to do this process, we’ve never had a problem. But now, apparently, we’re here.”Delta’s argument largely hinges on the fact that it provided the state with “standard operating procedures” in July 2022, and the state didn’t say anything about the company’s process.Tyler Williams is the CEO of ASI Food Safety and specializes in writing these cannabis standards. He reviewed the procedures that Delta submitted to the state. He said the state regulators wouldn’t have likely known what Delta was doing because standards are “unclear,” even to someone who works in writing them.“Nowhere in the document does it say that hemp will be used to make THC-A or that it will be added to medical cannabis products,” he said.He pointed to the state’s emergency rules filed on Jan. 20, where it says: “Manufactured product may not contain chemical modification, conversion, or synthetic derivation of cannabinoids to produce intoxicating cannabinoid isomers.”Delta’s practice was against these rules, Williams contends.“This is, in my opinion, blatant fraud and a risk to consumer health,” Williams said. According to their own standard operating procedures, Delta and Conte “are only testing hemp products for pesticides and it is not controlled the same as their medical cannabis products. Basically, they are increasing the THC of their products for economic gain and putting consumers at risk.”Batenburg said he wasn’t impressed by Delta’s argument, either.“That’s the defense of a guilty person trying to claim ignorance — or ‘The fact that you didn’t catch us means that we’re not guilty,’” Batenburg said. “It’s just bullsh–. This is a real black eye on the industry.”In its appeal, Delta argues that the Missouri didn’t specifically ban this process until the state’s final rules went into effect on July 30 of this year.But Carole Iles of the Administrative Hearing Commission said in an Aug. 29 order that the company will likely lose on that point. The only thing the cannabis regulating agency, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, added to this line in the final rules was the clause “such as THC-A …”“We agree with the department that language added to the permanent rule … did not change the requirement of the emergency rule that THC in marijuana products could only be derived from marijuana cultivated by a Missouri-licensed cultivation facility,” the order states.

There was “no way” for companies to know that Delta wasn’t producing marijuana distillate unless the state caught it.

‘No way to know’Both Batenburg and Lopez said there was “no way” for companies to know that Delta wasn’t producing marijuana distillate unless the state caught it.And this was not business-as-usual in the Missouri market, they said.“Every manufacturer that’s on that list besides Conte and the two related to Conte are victims as well,” Lopez said, “because we went by all of the rules of the state, and we’re not protected by it.”The companies that bought the Conte oil found it on the state’s tracking system, called Metrc. The state has paid the company running Metrc between $700,000 and $900,000 every year since 2020.From the moment the plant starts to sprout, it gets a tag that goes into Metrc, and that plant’s yield is tracked until it finds its way into a vape pen or joint.Company owners saw the distillate listed on Metrc, along with the “certificate of analysis” from the lab that showed it was safe for consumers.Delta sold at least 700 liters of the Conte distillate, Maritz said in his testimony. A liter of 80% concentrated THC can make more than 70,000 individual “doses” at 10mg THC a piece, industry experts say. That’s almost 50 million doses.So the likelihood that Missourians bought something they thought was pure marijuana but was really hemp-based this past spring is high.Lopez said he knows that many licensed manufacturers and dispensaries, especially the small ones, won’t bounce back from their losses, but he doesn’t believe anything like this could happen again.This all happened when recreational marijuana sales started, Lopez said, and when the state was making a “big push for new hires,” he said.“It was one bad apple, and we did everything we could, and the state caught it like they should have,” he said. “I don’t think it could happen again. But I could be wrong.”This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent, part of the States Newsroom.

[ad_2]

Source link

Politics

Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Politics

Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

[ad_2]

Source link

Politics

As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

[ad_2]

Source link