SPRINGFIELD, Ill.
(AP) - Illinois’ new governor delivered on a top campaign promise Tuesday by
signing legislation making the state the 11th to approve marijuana for
recreational use in a program offering legal remedies and economic benefits
to minorities whose lives critics say were damaged by a wayward war on
drugs.
Legalization in
Illinois also means that nearly 800,000 people with criminal records for
purchasing or possessing 30 grams of marijuana or less may have those
records expunged, a provision minority lawmakers and interest groups
demanded. It also gives cannabis-vendor preference to minority owners and
promises 25% of tax revenue from marijuana sales to redevelop impoverished
communities.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker,
whose election last year gave Democrats complete control over state
government again after four years under GOP predecessor Bruce Rauner, signed
the bill in Chicago amid a bevy of pot proponents, including the plan’s lead
sponsors, Rep. Kelly Cassidy and Sen. Heather Steans, both Chicago
Democrats.
“Today, we’re
hitting the ‘reset’ button on the war on drugs,” Cassidy said.
Residents may
purchase and possess up to 1 ounce (30 grams) of marijuana at a time.
Non-residents may have 15 grams. The law provides for cannabis purchases by
adults 21 and older at approved dispensaries, which, after they’re licensed
and established, may start selling Jan. 1, 2020. Possession remains a crime
until Jan. 1, a spokesman for Senate Democrats said.
“The war on
cannabis has destroyed families, filled prisons with nonviolent offenders,
and disproportionately disrupted black and brown communities,” Pritzker
said. “Law enforcement across the nation has spent billions of dollars to
enforce the criminalization of cannabis, yet its consumption remains
widespread.”
On the campaign
trail, Pritzker claimed that, once established, taxation of marijuana could
generate $800 million to $1 billion a year. He said dispensary licensing
would bring in $170 million in the coming year alone. But Cassidy and Steans
have dampened that prediction, lowering estimates to $58 million in the
first year and $500 million annually within five years.
Carrying the
psychoactive ingredient THC, marijuana was effectively outlawed in the U.S.
in 1937 and in the 1970s was declared a drug with no medicinal purpose and
high potential for abuse.
Blacks have been
most susceptible since then to “Just say ‘No"’-era crackdowns. Pritzker
quoted a 2010 statistic from the American Civil Liberties Union that while
blacks comprise 15% of Illinois’ population, they account for 60% of
cannabis-possession arrests.
Peoria Democratic
Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth summarized marijuana’s recent history as one where
“white men would get rich and black men would get arrested.” The plan
addresses those concerns with the criminal-record scrubbing by giving
preference to would-be marijuana vendors in areas of high poverty and
records of large numbers of convictions. And 25% of tax proceeds must be
reinvested in impoverished communities, while 20% is dedicated to
substance-abuse treatment programs.
“What we are doing
here is about reparations,” Gordon-Booth said. “After 40 years of treating
entire communities like criminals, here comes this multibillion-dollar
industry, and guess what? Black and brown people have been put at the very
center of this policy in a way that no other state has ever done.”
Police
organizations are wary, concerned about enforcing driving under the
influence laws and arguing technology for testing marijuana impairment needs
more development. Law enforcement organizations fearing black-market impacts
were successful in killing an earlier provision that would have allowed
anyone to grow up to five marijuana plants at home for personal use. Police
said they’d have difficulty enforcing that, so the bill was amended to allow
five plants to be maintained only by authorized patients under the state’s
medical marijuana law. They previously could not grow their own.
Ten other states
and the District of Columbia have legalized smoking or eating marijuana for
recreational use since 2012, when voters in Colorado and Washington state
approved ballot initiatives. This year began with promising proposals in New
York and New Jersey, but both fizzled late this spring. Despite a statewide
listening tour on the issue by Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor last
winter, the idea never took flight.
Vermont and
Michigan last year were the latest states to legalize marijuana. Vermont did
so through the Legislature - the first time it wasn’t done through a ballot
initiative - but while it allows residents to grow small amounts for
themselves, it didn’t establish a statewide distribution system like
Illinois did, licensing dispensaries. Other states license dispensaries too,
but not all.
Illinois’ 55
medical-cannabis dispensaries get first crack at licenses to sell under the
new law because they’re proven business concerns, Cassidy said. They may
apply to dispense recreational pot at their current stores and for a license
for a second location, meaning the state could have 110 recreational pot
outlets by the time sales start Jan. 1. In October, the application period
for 75 more dispensaries opens. No more would be allowed to open after that
until the state conducts a review of the rollout.