Cannabis & Regulating Social Equity

• Illinois Cannabis Regulation 
• Comparative Analysis of Social Equity Provisions in Adult Use Cannabis Licensing
• Protections and Limitations on Transfer of Interest in Licenses

Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes
Recorded: July 22, 2020

Illinois legalized recreational cannabis in 2019 and issued licenses in 2020. Illinois' legislation is unique in that social equity was central to its creation. The legislation's goal is to encourage the participation of those who were disproportionately and negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition. Throughout the law there are requirements to give social equity businesses and employees priority over others. However, the first businesses that were prepared and licensed to operate in Illinois were existing medical cannabis dispensaries, who were awarded their licenses without a social equity component to their business.

The legislation remedies this by leveraging their success and earmarking revenue from those operations to fund social equity applications and provide access to capital for new small businesses which would otherwise be shut out of the industry because of federal lending prohibitions. This legislation is being applauded as being an example of how lawmakers can incorporate social goals in fair and equitable way, in addition we will discuss similar provisions in other state laws. We aim to discuss how the legislation of social equity can be done lawfully, how successful the efforts have been in achieving inclusion of communities of color in the industry, and what we can incorporate from this elsewhere to remedy historic injustices against communities of color.

This program was recorded on July 22nd, 2020.

American Bar Association