Whomever the next governor of Illinois will be, he will be a businessman. He will either have significant personal wealth or even more significant personal wealth. But a major policy point that now separates the two candidates \u2014 incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner and challenger J.B. Pritzker \u2014 is that one man is a billionaire who wants to legalize marijuana in Illinois.<\/p>\n
J.B. Pritzker<\/a> is a born billionaire whose family owns the Hyatt chain of hotels. He has stakes in casinos<\/a>, tech startups and other ventures that make even more money. Pritzker is so rich he doesn\u2019t have to bother with campaign contributions at all. The roughly $70 million he\u2019s spent in the race so far,<\/a> a record, was his own money. Back in January, Pritzker first<\/a> came out in favor of marijuana legalization and he\u2019s since continued pressing the issue.<\/p>\n Rauner, on the other hand, is the retired former chairman of a private equity firm whose first job in politics, after accumulating his fortune, was serving as the governor of one of the nation\u2019s most populous states.\u00a0Rauner is so rich that $50 million<\/a> of the $72.5 million in his campaign finance account is his own.<\/p>\n If the sight of two obscenely wealthy men funneling their personal fortunes into an election campaign makes you queasy, well, remind yourself this: Illinois<\/a> may get marijuana legalization out of the bargain.<\/p>\n In the name of criminal justice reform, consumer safety, and increased state revenue, it\u2019s time to legalize marijuana in Illinois. pic.twitter.com\/6C19fMDOPx<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) April 20, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n On 420, Pritzker\u2019s campaign released a pro-cannabis legalization video on Twitter, part of a concerted effort to use marijuana policy as a way to appeal to voters and build a candidate identity. Pritzker\u2019s embrace of cannabis legalization began in January, when he was still running in a crowded primary field. Now that the primary race won, and the Democratic nomination is secured, Pritzker still has to appeal to voters. His support of marijuana legalization may also be part of an effort to compensate for an FBI-recorded phone call with disgraced ex-governor Rod Blagojevich, in which Pritzker made comments deemed insensitive to black people.<\/a><\/p>\n For all these reasons, embracing drug reform \u2014 and, specifically, advocating for making space for black and brown people in a newly created cannabis industry \u2014 is a smart move for Pritzker. Rauner\u2019s opposition to marijuana legalization, and his obstinacy in streamlining Illinois\u2019s cumbersome medical cannabis program, is also a handy stick for Pritzker to hit him with.<\/p>\n A majority of Illinoisans agree that this is the right thing to do, but @BruceRauner<\/a> is firmly against it. He\u2019s even made medical marijuana in Illinois nearly inaccessible. The verification process alone leaves patients waiting for relief.<\/p>\n \u2014 JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) April 20, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \nThat\u2019s not all. Supporting marijuana legalization is also<\/em> consistent with earlier decisions made by other, richer billionaires \u2014 and other members of his own family.<\/p>\n Billionaires figured prominently in California\u2019s push to legalize marijuana in 2016. Napster founder and early Facebook investor Sean Parker provided seed money \u2014 and Nicholas Pritzker, a California-based tech investor and J.B.\u2019s cousin<\/a>, contributed $450,000 to California\u2019s legal cannabis initiative. Among the Pritzker cousin\u2019s investments are MJ Freeway, a Denver-based inventory-management software platform for marijuana dispensaries. Nicholas\u2019s brother, Joby, is current chairman of the Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>, arguably the nation\u2019s leading legalization advocacy group.<\/p>\n All this to say that the Pritzker money spent on legalization so far in California is a small amount compared to the fortune J.B. has exhausted on his bid for governor, with the campaign barely halfway run.<\/p>\n If J.B. Pritzker just wanted to legalize marijuana, he could have funded a ballot initiative like Prop. 64 and saved a few million. But he wants to be governor, and so marijuana legalization has become a plank in his very well-funded campaign machine.<\/p>\n Income-inequality-sensitive Bernie Sanders-types may squirm in discomfit, but there\u2019s no denying what\u2019s now a trend: legalization is happening with support from billionaires.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> what other billionaires do you think support legal cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Yet Another American Billionaire Wants to Legalize Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Whomever the next governor of Illinois will be, he will be a businessman. He will either have significant personal wealth or even more significant personal wealth. But a major policy point that now separates the two candidates \u2014 incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner and challenger J.B. Pritzker \u2014 is that oneContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4051,50,170,1051,4060,4061,901,292],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25692,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25691\/revisions\/25692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Yet Another American Billionaire Wants to Legalize Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"