State lawmakers behind cannabis legalization reflect: ‘This isn’t the finish line’

“This is day one of the end of prohibition, not the end of this process by any stretch,” said state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, who was passing out commemorative buttons Wednesday.

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker, state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, state Sen. Heather Steans, state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, and state Rep. Kelly Cassidy hold up legislation that makes Illinois the nation’s 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, state Sen. Heather Steans, state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, and state Rep. Kelly Cassidy are shown in June, holding the legislation that made Illinois the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file photo

For state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, who led the charge in the Illinois House for legal cannabis, the start of sales was a day to celebrate.

But it’s not the end of Cassidy’s cannabis work.

“There’s definitely some emotion associated with it, but fundamentally, this isn’t the finish line,” Cassidy, D-Chicago, said Wednesday. “This is day one of the end of prohibition, not the end of this process by any stretch.”

Cassidy was passing out commemorative buttons Wednesday and thinking about the road she and state Rep. Jehan Gordon Booth, D-Peoria, another key House sponsor of the legalization bill, traveled to this point.

Even more important than letting people buy marijuana, she said, was clearing the records of people with minor pot offenses.

It was fun to “see everyone so happy,” Cassidy said, but “the things that drove me to this, that put these feet in motion, is those expungements that I’ve already seen happening.”

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy passed out buttons Wednesday to commemorate the first day of legal cannabis in Illinois.

Illinois State Rep. Kelly Cassidy passed out buttons Wednesday to commemorate the first day of legal cannabis in Illinois.

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She also wants to make sure the social-equity process for handing out licenses is working — and that African Americans and other marginalized groups get their fair share of what is likely to be a booming industry.

State Sen. Heather Steans, who led the charge in the other chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, was “delighted to get to usher in a new decade by ushering out prohibition.”

“We’re the first state to do it all legislatively, which I think has allowed us to be more thoughtful about the way we approach it,” Steans said. That’s meant addressing “social equity in a much more robust fashion than other states.”

Legal cannabis means “you can get a safe product and do it in a way now that’s totally legal and [it] takes away some of the shame that goes along with it,” Steans said.

“For the folks that don’t [use cannabis], there’s probably some trepidation … I think they’ll see the sky doesn’t fall down, by and large.”

It takes about five years for a marketplace to mature, Cassidy said, and she expects to see “pretty significant changes over the course of that period.”

Thursday, the next round of dispensary applications are due. Next week, people can start applying for craft grow, transportation and infuser licenses. Those applications may generate some of the change Cassidy alluded to.

It’s been nearly three years since Cassidy and Steans introduced legislation to legalize the purchase and consumption of cannabis — Steans’ bill sought to legalize possession of up to 28 grams of marijuana.

Looking back, Cassidy said those bills were intended not to gain traction, but to offer a “deep dive” into policy possibilities.

“We knew anything that advanced under [former Gov. Bruce] Rauner would be met with a veto — so we used that time to do the research we don’t often get to do on bills,” Cassidy said. “Those bills were put out as the foundation of the conversation that led to today … without that hostile governor, I don’t know that the bill would be the quality product it is today.”

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