Cannifem represents much of what state lawmakers hoped for when they legalized marijuana in Illinois.
The startup business was formed by three Black women from areas hardest hit by the war on drugs. Yet the group failed to get any of the three cannabis licenses for which it applied. And the women spent tens of thousands of dollars trying.
Now Cannifem represents much of what went wrong with the first year of legalization. Applicants who lawmakers had hoped would get a slice of the lucrative pie feel betrayed. One year after the pot law took effect, no new entrepreneurs have been licensed to open because of problems with scoring the applications.
“It’s a shame. The people they intended to benefit are being left behind,” Cannifem co-founder Nakisha Hobbs said. “The legislators should take every possible step to correct the inequities that still exist to ensure a level playing ground.”
Meanwhile, the industry remains dominated by a few wealthy, white male-owned businesses. And customers have paid the price, initially with product shortages, and then with prices that remain twice as high as in Western states with legal weed.
Despite that, Illinois was expected to surpass $1 billion in total sales, bringing in more than $100 million in taxes and fees for a cash-strapped state government. Businesses already running medical marijuana shops opened new stores in Chicago and statewide. And voters in six of seven suburbs approved ballot questions allowing legal weed sales, and Arlington Heights, Downers Grove and Naperville dropped their bans on pot shops.
Nationally, voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved legalizing cannabis, and Mississippi voters supported allowing it for medical use.
For many in Illinois, 2020 began with high hopes and excitement. On New Year’s Day, thousands of people lined up for hours before dawn to make history with the end of cannabis prohibition. Soon after, one company began offering marijuana bus tours in Chicago.
But the long lines continued for weeks, as severe product shortages led to purchasing limits, and medical patients complained that they were cut off from their medicine. Eventually, supply began to catch up with demand.
Even with cannabis deemed an “essential” industry and demand during the COVID-19 pandemic at an all-time high, priceofweed.com reported that Illinois still had the most expensive high-quality cannabis of any state as of October, at $352 per ounce.
The Illinois market is limited to just 21 growers’ licenses, which severely restricts supply compared with the hundreds of growers in states like Colorado and California. Lawmakers initially gave the market exclusively to the medical growers, who said they could supply the market with no new competition, even though a state-commissioned study said otherwise.
By law, the state was required to award 75 new marijuana retail store licenses by May 1, and 40 new craft grower licenses by July 1. Citing delays in the application review process due to COVID-19, Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued executive orders delaying the issuance of those new licenses indefinitely.
When the state announced in September that only 21 finalists qualified for a lottery for the 75 pot shops, the hundreds of other applicants cried foul….
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