The Illinois Black Hemp Association has called a press conference on Thursday, January 16, 2025, 11:00 a.m., at 8031 S. Halsted, Chicago, IL 60620, Naomi & Sylvester Smith Senior Living Center Community Room. In the below statement, the Association outlines what it deems as failures within recent legislation attempts.
The 2018 Farm Bill provided a promise of opportunity by invigorating farming, entrepreneurship, and innovation that more owners, employees, and consumers are beginning to enjoy, but now, the American Dream is under attack. Expansions & revisions of federal Farm Bills were designed to sustain opportunities for small family farms and related businesses, outsized by larger agribusinesses, which include the entire seed-to-sale chain – growers, processors, distributors, marketers, manufacturers, and transporters. In Illinois, representatives of these facets of the industry have come together to form the Illinois Black Hemp Association to ensure that the promise of opportunity is not stifled or cut off.
These advocates for hemp are a group of small business owners and family farmers who also want responsible regulation to eliminate bad actors who are selling illegitimate products. Drafting responsible, equitable legislation does not require, nor demand the over-reaching approach that was proposed in the recent bill. More major concerns with the recently proposed legislation were the obvious technical inaccuracies and scientifically unsound definitions. This would have effectively criminalized all hemp extraction in Illinois which would have created devastating outcomes for those small businesses and family farmers.
The Illinois Black Hemp Association thanked Illinois Speaker, Emanuel Chris Welch and the courageous Illinois House officials who took the time to listen to their concerns, and examine and recognize the many flaws that were contained in the bill. "In so doing, we ask that legislative leaders and the Governor collaborate with the Illinois Black Hemp Association in crafting legislation that ensures that the efforts to restore economic hope to disenfranchised communities, devastated by the failed "War on Drugs" and the resultant disproportionate mass incarceration of people of color for non-violent cannabis sales & possession, are maintained."
For more information:
Illinois Black Hemp Association
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