(The Center Square) – Hemp businesses advocating for responsible industry wide regulations urge Illinois lawmakers to reject an Illinois Department of Agriculture proposed rule regulating hemp.
The proposed regulations would criminalize the sale and transport of hemp products not purchased through a licensed cannabis dispensary.
David Lakeman, division manager for cannabis and hemp at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, recently testified at a Joint Committee on Administrative Rules hearing.
“To be clear, the department’s intent here is solely to align and implement the United States Department of Agriculture’s rules on hemp as implemented in the 2018 Farm Bill,” said Lakeman.
The Illinois Hemp Business Association said the agriculture rule would refuel the war on drugs by expanding law enforcement authority for stops, searches and drug arrests related to the purchase and transport of federally lawful hemp products.
“I’ll be forced to relocate my business to a new state, taking good jobs and opportunities out of Illinois,” said Ashraf Hassan, owner of hemp manufacturer Organic Pharma Techs in Joliet. “Even more concerning, this rule would disenfranchise the very same people that Illinois’ social equity program was meant to uplift.”
The IHBA also claims the rule would presume all hemp products that have not yet been tested, even hemp that has yet to be harvested, to be illegal cannabis, which can be seized by the state at any time, and would authorize the state to conduct unlimited inspections of local businesses, saddling shop owners with new “testing” and “sampling” charges of up to $1,500 per product.
As the battle over hemp regulation rages on, the state cannabis industry continues to expand. University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen joined cannabis researchers to launch the Cannabis Research Institute to get a deeper understanding of marijuana.
The plan for the CRI, which is funded by $7 million in tax funds from the Illinois Department of Human Services, is to provide data and research on the scientific and socio-economic impacts of cannabis usage and production.
“We are going to be working to document the public’s needs, exploring the health care properties of cannabis, and finding ways to make its production of a crop more efficient,” said Killeen.
Currently, 40 million adults in the United States use cannabis at a rate more than double over the last 10 years.
Illinois legalized the adult recreational use of marijuana in 2020.
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