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Illinois regulators released a report on Monday that shows a glaring lack of diversity among business owners in the state\u2019s adult-use marijuana market. But it also outlines a plan to begin turning that around in the next fiscal year, with the industry set to significantly expand as nearly 200 new social equity businesses come online.<\/p>\n
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation\u2019s (IDFPR) 2022 Annual Cannabis Report underscores a key reason the state has faced criticism from advocates over the rollout of the recreational marijuana market: Negligible racial and gender representation among business owners and corporate executives.<\/p>\n
There are currently no active cannabis licenses with majority ownership by social equity applicants, people of color or people with disabilities. And there\u2019s only one licensee with majority women ownership.<\/p>\n
White people are disproportionately represented in every market category, including majority owners (88 percent), minority owners (71 percent), boards of directors (90 percent) and C-suite executives (80 percent). Black and Latino people account for less than 10 percent for most of the top positions.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nVia IDFPR.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The diversity deficit has been met with sharp criticism from activists who feel that the state has failed to fulfill the promises of equitable legalization. A day after the IDFPR report was released, a coalition of advocates held a press conference to call attention to the ongoing problem and demand action to resolve the problem.<\/p>\n
Illinois Rep. LaShawn Ford (D) and representatives from organizations such as Chicago NORML, The Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition, Illinois Independent Craft Growers Association, Social Equity Empowerment Network (SEEN) and more provided<\/a> an update on discussions with Gov. J.B. Pritzker\u2019s (D) office about the issue, next year\u2019s legislative agenda and licensing developments.<\/p>\n \u201cI look forward to working with my colleagues in the Legislature, and the Governor\u2019s Office, to pursue solutions for our cannabis program,\u201d Ford said in a press release.<\/p>\n While the 2022 Fiscal Year ended without meeting calls for inclusivity in the industry, the report also detailed next steps for marijuana business licensing in the new year that regulators say will help level the playing field.<\/p>\n IDFPR said that it has approved 190 new conditional adult-use retailer licenses, including 185 that will be issued to social equity applicants starting in July 2023. Existing conditional license holder will also be converted to a fully approved dispensary, which \u201crepresents an increase of over 100 percent of new licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis represents an unprecedented expansion of the cannabis market and includes only Social Equity Applicants, providing further diversity to the market,\u201d the report<\/a> says. \u201cThis expansion has already created new opportunities and innovations to Department processes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The department intended to process the social equity licenses earlier following a 2021 lottery, but a court had stayed the action for nearly a year before that was lifted in May.<\/p>\n Regulators also said that they will also be carrying out the \u201cfirst disparity study of the cannabis industry\u201d in the 2023 Fiscal Year.<\/p>\n The new report gives other details about the cannabis market, including sales data.<\/p>\n For this most recent fiscal year, Illinois saw $1,504,067,158 in recreational marijuana sales. For the 2022 calendar year, the state crossed the $1 billion mark in August<\/a>\u2014two months earlier than it took to reach that milestone in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pritzker recently\u00a0touted the state\u2019s marijuana sales and resulting tax revenue<\/a>\u00a0for the 2022 Fiscal Year. Illinois collected $445.3 million in tax dollars from $1.5 billion in cannabis sales during that period. That\u2019s a 50 percent increase is cannabis tax dollars compared to the prior fiscal year.<\/p>\n While 2022 recreational marijuana sales have been generally stable this year, there\u2019s an expectation that purchases will increase demonstrably since officials approved the nearly 200 new social equity marijuana retailer licenses.<\/p>\n The governor and other state officials have emphasized that they\u2019re committed to ensuring that portions of tax revenue from the marijuana market go toward community reinvestment, as prescribed under the state\u2019s legalization law.<\/p>\n In June, Illinois officials announced that\u00a0the state is awarding $45 million in grants<\/a>\u00a0funded by marijuana tax dollars to support community reinvestment in areas \u201chardest hit by the failed war on drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n That marks the second round of funding that\u2019s being made available through the state\u2019s Restore, Reinvest, and Renew (R3) program, which was\u00a0established under Illinois\u2019s adult-use cannabis legalization law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year, state officials also put $3.5 million in\u00a0cannabis-generated funds toward efforts to reduce violence<\/a>\u00a0through street intervention programs.<\/p>\n From last year\u2019s sales, Illinois\u00a0generated almost $100 million more in tax revenue<\/a>\u00a0from adult-use marijuana sales than from alcohol in 2021, state data found.<\/p>\n In addition to providing community reinvestment funding, the governor announced in 2020 that his office had\u00a0processed more than 500,000 expungements and pardons<\/a>\u00a0for people with low-level cannabis convictions on their records.<\/p>\n Pritzker also recently signed a bill that will make it so courts\u00a0cannot deny petitions to expunge or seal records<\/a>\u00a0based on a positive drug test for marijuana.<\/p>\n A\u00a0state-funded initiative was also recently established<\/a>\u00a0to help residents with marijuana convictions get legal aid and other services to have their records expunged.<\/p>\n Majority Of D.C. Voters Support Marijuana Legalization And Oppose Crackdown On Unregulated \u2018Gifting\u2019 Market, Poll Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Illinois Regulators Detail Lack Of Marijuana Industry Diversity And Preview Equity Plans In 2022 Report<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Illinois regulators released a report on Monday that shows a glaring lack of diversity among business owners in the state\u2019s adult-use marijuana market. But it also outlines a plan to begin turning that around in the next fiscal year, with the industry set to significantly expand as nearly 200 newContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":57309,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57308"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57310,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57308\/revisions\/57310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Illinois Regulators Detail Lack Of Marijuana Industry Diversity And Preview Equity Plans In 2022 Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"