SPRINGFIELD – Legislation championed by Gov. JB Pritzker to strongly regulate hemp sales stalled in the Illinois House late Monday after intense lobbying by both the governor and Mayor Brandon Johnson, who opposed the measure over revenue concerns.
The bill, which had earlier passed the state Senate with nearly no opposition, would license, tax and regulate hemp, which is used for products such as delta-8 and delta-10 THC that get users high. Smoke shops and other stores that sell the product say the law is so restrictive that it would put many of them out of business.
Though the legislation set up a natural showdown between the cannabis and hemp industries, it also fueled another flashpoint between the governor and mayor. In the past few days, Johnson reached out to lawmakers to voice his opposition to the bill, according to sources familiar with the mayor’s outreach. The sources said he expressed concern over how much revenue could be lost on the city of Chicago if the legislation moves forward.
With the House adjourning Monday night without calling the bill, sources said it was uncertain whether the legislation will be brought to a vote before the lame duck session ends at the end of Tuesday. That would be a rare Springfield victory for Johnson politically since he worked actively to drum up opposition to the bill.
The legislation might now not get another look until after the next General Assembly is inaugurated on Wednesday.
During a closed-door meeting of House members Monday afternoon, the Pritzker administration made staffers from a couple of different state agencies available to field questions about the bill, sources said. The mood in the meeting got tense, with at least one lawmaker berating the staffers during a discussion about the bill, one of the sources said.
On Monday night, Pritzker’s spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement the governor was “disappointed that lawmakers failed to take bipartisan, common sense action to protect children and the public from unregulated and untested hemp products.”
“The Governor is never beholden to special interests and will always put people, especially children, over politics and profits,” Gough said.
The mayor’s spokesperson, Erin Connelly, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Unlike state-licensed legal cannabis, hemp shops have no legal age restriction, no requirements to test and label their products for potency and purity, and don’t have to pay the same high fees and taxes. As a result, there have been cases of minors getting medical treatment after ingesting the products, and growing hemp sales have cut into the licensed marijuana market.
The mayor’s direct involvement in lobbying against the bill came at least two years after discussions to crack down on hemp sales in Illinois began in Springfield. Since Johnson took office in May 2023, he’s had a host of other priorities in the statehouse, such as seeking funding for the city’s public schools and transit systems, that have met with little success The state is facing down a multibillion-dollar budget deficit in the next fiscal year, further complicating the mayor’s agenda in Springfield.
Johnson and his allies, including Ald. William Hall, 6th, say the city would suffer a massive revenue hole should the hemp bill pass, though it is unclear how exactly sales would be impacted. Hall’s effort to establish a Chicago hemp tax in November failed, even as City Hall scrambled to close its budget gap with tax and fee hikes.
The South Side alderman said Monday he still hopes to implement a hemp tax. But as Springfield has mulled beating the city to the punch, Hall blasted Pritzker for “political bullying” and “predatory politics.” He called on the governor to slow down the process, which he described as an effort to curb Chicago’s plans to tax hemp products.
“To excommunicate or exclude Chicago is unfair, and it hurts Chicagoans. This was an opportunity to help Chicagoans in need,” Hall said. “The governor is going to hurt Chicagoans, period, by excluding Chicago from what would be a fair share of taxes.”
For his part, Pritzker threw a party Sunday evening in the governor’s mansion where he ratcheted up the pressure to pass the bill, sources said. By mid-Monday morning, Pritzker appeared close to having the 60 votes needed for Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch to call a floor vote.
But opposition remained from legislators including Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat who said he was personally contacted by Johnson over the bill.
“He believes regulating it and taxing it is more beneficial for the health and for the revenue for the city,” Ford, who opposes the bill, said of the mayor in an interview on Sunday. “Of course, the revenue is important for the mayor but he also wants to make sure that we … do it right as far as not creating a new prohibition that will create a new War on Drugs.”
Hours before the House adjourned Monday night, state Rep. Theresa Mah, a Chicago Democrat, said she opposed the legislation in part because she doesn’t want “Big Cannabis” to be “elbowing out the competition.” More time could be needed to negotiate on the details of the bill, the Near South Side representative added, even if that means kicking it into the spring legislative session.
“I believe that there are a lot of small businesses that produce hemp products that are legitimate small businesses and provide products that the public is interested in. They themselves want to be regulated. They’re open to it.” Mah said. “What I would love to see is a passage of an age-restriction standalone bill that would address some of the access issues for people who shouldn’t have access.”
Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, a Chicago Democrat who supports the bill, said Pritzker reached out to her a few weeks ago, indicating this bill was a priority of his during the final session days for the General Assembly.
“I’m a parent of a 16-year-old, and my office is two blocks away from a high school. I’ve heard very scary stories about what is happening in schools with kids everyday who are getting access to Delta08 and Kratom,” Delgado said. “We have no idea what’s in it. This is (the) time for us to step in and put some reasonable regulations.”
Edgar Gonzalez, a Chicago Democrat who said earlier Monday he was leaning toward voting for the bill if it was called, described the issue as a battle between the hemp and cannabis industries, and expressed frustration that the legislature is immersed in the bickering.
“I get annoyed when different industries, they come together and then they put us all in the middle of it. If they’re trying to figure this out, figure it out and then clue us in,” Gonzalez said. “Regulation isn’t bad but I think that there’s just been a lot of jockeying from both sides, and it’s come to the point where both sides are starting to annoy everybody.”
On Saturday, dozens of Illinois hemp farmers and small business owners rallied at the state Capitol in opposition to the the bill.
“Most clientele cannot afford to go to a dispensary and pay outrageous prices and taxes, where we offer a similar product much cheaper, safer, and a lot of times run by family farms locally,” said Billy Janicki, a hemp business owner from downstate Vandalia.
The hemp lobby’s efforts faltered amid a push from the cannabis industry, which opposes hemp products because they eat into potential cannabis sales.
Cannabis advocates argue this bill provided an attainable pathway for hemp distributors to acquire a license. Ted Parks, a licensed cannabis distributor, is a part of a social equity cannabis program, which provides accessible opportunities to enter the cannabis industry. He says these businesses struggle to compete with unregulated hemp businesses.
“This bill allows a pathway to get the proper licenses, and it’s going to be less than what we had to go through,” Parks said.
Chicago received about $5.3 million from its 3% licensed cannabis sales tax in the past year ending in October of 2024, the Illinois Department of Revenue reported. The city and state get additional revenue from sales tax and other fees and taxes on cannabis.
Statewide, licensed cannabis sales have reached about $2 billion a year, generating taxes of more than $400 million.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s spokesperson, Nick Shields, said Monday that she is neutral on the hemp bill.
The Tribune’s Alice Yin, A.D. Quig and Addison Wright contributed reporting. McCoppin and Sheridan reported from Chicago.
