Lawmakers, cannabis industry call for ban on ‘delta-8’

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois’ largest cannabis business association is pushing to ban the sale of delta-8 THC, an increasingly popular psychoactive substance that’s popped up in corner stores across the country in recent years.

New legislation filed in Springfield this week revives an ongoing debate over delta-8 and other hemp-derived products, which are totally unregulated in Illinois even as the state approaches the five-year anniversary of legalizing cannabis.

For those who’ve been trying to break into Illinois’ still-young cannabis industry, the state’s inaction on delta-8 is an insult to the thousands of dollars and years of work that some business operators have put into trying to get their businesses off the ground.

“It is deeply disheartening and, frankly, a betrayal by the state to allow these shops to pop up and call themselves dispensaries,” Ron Miller, a coowner of his family-run Navada Labs and BLYSS Dispensary in Mt. Vernon, said at a Capitol news conference Thursday.

And for the industry’s lead lobbying group, the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois, delta-8 represents other threats, including continued reports of Americans getting sick after consuming unregulated products, and the growing efforts to market delta-8 to young people.

At that news conference, CBAI Executive Director Tiffany Ingram stood next to a table filled with delta-8-infused candy and snacks in packaging strikingly similar to the multi-national brands they were designed to imitate. In one hand, Ingram held up a bag of Fritos corn chips and a similar-looking bag of “Fritos” snacks with small cannabis leaves on it.

Additionally, Ingram said, without having to pay cannabis-related taxes or other compliance costs, delta-8 businesses are not only undercutting legitimate licensed dispensaries, but the price is also accessible to kids.

“It says on the door you can only be 21 to come in,” Ingram told Capitol News Illinois of her trips to faux dispensaries in Chicago’s South Loop and Uptown neighborhoods to purchase some of the delta-8 products on display at the news conference. “But no one checked my ID.”

State Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, D-Chicago, said her 15-year-old daughter has told her that delta-8 products are very accessible to her peers.