As the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Chicago this week, visitors are being greeted with a reminder that Democrats under the leadership of Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) successfully legalized marijuana in the state—a policy promotion that signals the party’s understanding of cannabis reform as a key way to appeal to voters heading into the November election.
Billboard advertisements labeled as paid for by Pritzker’s political campaign, displayed just outside of the downtown Chicago area, says simply: “Illinois Democrats Legalized Marijuana,” a reference to the legislature’s passage of a cannabis reform bill that the governor signed into law in 2019.
This comes in the context of a major moment in national politics, with delegates of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) set to ceremonially vote to make Vice President Kamala Harris the party’s 2024 nominee after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race.
While Pritzker isn’t up for reelection until 2026, his campaign committee evidently felt that promoting the state’s move to legalize marijuana would be a potent message for the party while the nation’s eyes are on Chicago during the convention. And polling has consistently supported that position, including a recent survey showing majority support for the reform in key battleground states such as neighboring Wisconsin.
for those who can’t tell it says “illinois democrats legalized marijuana”
— directional transsexual (@north0fnorth) August 9, 2024
Marijuana Moment reached out to Pritzker’s office for comment, but a representative was not immediately available.
Harris, for her part, also backs legalization. She called for the policy change as recently as March in a closed-door meeting with marijuana pardon recipients. However, she has yet to address the issue since assuming her position at the top of the ticket.
Delegates on Monday are also voting on a party platform that touts the Biden administration’s marijuana pardons and rescheduling moves, while calling for broader reform to expunge prior records.
The party is also blasting former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, over his prior administration’s anti-cannabis actions.
DNC released its draft platform last month, before Biden announced he was bowing out of the race. As far as the marijuana provisions are concerned, the document is identical, even though Harris and Biden share differing views about federal cannabis policy. The incumbent opposes adult-use legalization, even as he’s pushed for more incremental reform.
24 hours into Chicago and I think the most American experience I’ve had so far is not knowing if this billboard is positive or an attack ad pic.twitter.com/Yc7m6W8wT4
— ℳatt (@matttomic) August 18, 2024
In addition to decriminalization, the prior 2020 platform DNC adopted also pushed for medical marijuana legalization, which is also omitted from this new draft version.
But the final form still stands in stark contrast with the 2024 GOP platform, which doesn’t touch on marijuana specifically at all but does promote policies that promote an anti-drug agenda. The party said it will “crack down hard on” and “demolish” drug cartels, for example.
Back in Illinois, Pritzker has been a strong advocate for legalization and has taken a number steps to build upon the state’s legal market.
However, the governor said last month that while he’s “incredibly proud” of the state’s progress in repairing the harms of marijuana prohibition, he’s “not satisfied” yet and pledged to continue to promote equity in the legal cannabis industry. He also took a jab at surrounding states that have yet to enact legalization and estimated that 25 percent of Illinois’s cannabis sales come from out-of-state visitors.
I have no idea if this is advocating for Democrats or for Republicans pic.twitter.com/NiTh7O8Eup
— Will (@will512312) August 5, 2024
“It hasn’t been easy. We have more work to do—there’s no doubt,” Pritzker, whose name was at one point floated as a potential Democratic vice presidential nominee before Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was selected, said. “I’m not satisfied with where we are. We have a long way to go to repair the damage done by the war on drugs.”
“I’m really hopeful that the cannabis industry will continue to bring opportunity and wealth to communities of color for decades to come,” he said.
Pritzker also touted a study published by the state’s Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office this month, which found that 60 percent of all adult-use marijuana business licenses granted by regulators have been issued to minority- or women-owned businesses.
The study was released about a week after the 100th social equity-owned marijuana store in Illinois opened its doors.
The governor said the state’s legalization policy that he signed into law was “carefully crafted to accomplish a model of what common-sense equity-focused cannabis policy can look like.”
“We’d seen the other states and the direction they had gone, and they had failed to, in my view, get it right and were trying to play catch-up afterward,” he said. “We wanted to start from the very beginning, trying to get it right.”
Pritzker also argued that federal legalization will be needed in order to better ensure equity in the cannabis market.
“Equity demands that we go at this at the federal level,” he said at the INCBA event.
At the same time that Illinois officials have worked to distinguish their market from other legal states in terms of social equity achievements, it also hasn’t been shy about promoting the overall economic success of the industry, which saw just under $2 billion worth of marijuana in calendar year 2023.
A solid fraction of those dollars, the governor noted last month, have come from what he called “cannabis tourists” who reside in prohibitionist states and visit Illinois to buy regulated marijuana.
“People from Indiana, people from Iowa, people from Wisconsin, Kentucky, drive across the border and buy something in a dispensary in Illinois. Now, they’re not supposed to drive back over the border to their home states, so I assume they’re just staying in Illinois,” he said, drawing laughs.
Pritzker has frequently joked about the fact that Illinois is benefiting from the lack of legal access in surrounding states. Going back to his State of the State address in 2020, he said out-of-state dollars will end up coming to Illinois and paying taxes for cannabis products that bolster the state’s coffers.
Meanwhile, also this month, the Pritzker administration announced that the state-legal cannabis industry passed the $1 billion sales mark for the year on July 1—about two weeks ahead of when that milestone was reached in the prior calendar year.
Also, Illinois officials in recent months have eyed making changes to how hemp-derived cannabinoids are regulated, but a proposal to do that failed to make it out of the General Assembly this session.
Separately, state senators earlier this year took up a bill that would have legalized psilocybin and allowed regulated access through service centers, where adults could use the drug in a supervised setting.
The state also gave preliminary approval in March to add female orgasmic disorder, or FOD, as a medical cannabis qualifying condition.
Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.
Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our cannabis advocacy journalism to stay informed, please consider a monthly Patreon pledge.
