"States that have legalized cannabis for adults are reaping significant economic benefits. The legal adult-use cannabis industry has now generated over $10 billion in new tax revenue, and in many instances that revenue is being distributed to much needed public services and programs, including reinvesting in communities that were devastated by the war on drugs," said Karen O’Keefe, MPP's director of state policies.
"Progress has moved forward in the past year quicker than I think we ever saw before. By and large, most of the new regulatory measures have been overwhelmingly positive," said Karen O’Keefe, MPP's director of state policies.
"Every pharmacy has been different, and I have seen that Shreveport is probably on the lower end of the price points that we’re seeing," said Kevin Caldwell, MPP's Southeast legislative manager.
"We’ve had the Senate leadership come out with a legalization proposal. We’ve had Republicans come out with legalization proposals. The theme here is bipartisanship," said Chris Lindsey, MPP's director of government relations.
"We strongly urge legislators to revise the proposal to legalize possession and home cultivation upon enactment. We also urge the legislature to pass implementing legislation in 2022 to ensure racial justice is at the heart of legalization, and to allow for a more timely transition to a safe, regulated market," said Karen O'Keefe, MPP's state policies director.
"Regional pressure has occurred many times for the cannabis legalization movement. And when it comes to legalization, there's a very strong reason for states to look to their neighbors because people are simply going to drive across state lines, purchase cannabis and then come back home. Indiana is going to be surrounded on three sides with recreational cannabis states," said Matthew Schweich, MPP's deputy director.
Hutchinson said that in order to "normalize and legalize a product for whom the prohibition of that exact same product destroyed generations of communities, you have to center those two things together."
Policy proposals centered around equity are "better," Hutchinson stressed.
"If you center the people who are harmed the most by this—the communities that were harmed the most by this—then you can meet people in places where they didn't even know they were going to agree with you," the new MPP director added.
“I’m pleased to be joining the team at MPP, where I will continue my yearslong effort to develop and support cannabis legalization legislation that centers on equity and repairing the harms of the past,” Hutchinson said in a news release. “We are incredibly proud of the hard work and lessons learned in Illinois, standing up programs to invest in equity entrepreneurs, reinvesting in communities, and clearing hundreds of thousands of arrests and criminal records.”
Hutchinson told Marijuana Moment that in her regulatory capacity as Pritzker’s cannabis advisor, days when she would see thousands of cannabis records cleared under the newly enacted law were the “moments that I will take with me for the rest of my life, wherever it is I go.”
“It also means that this cannabis legalization work is wrapped around my soul now, so when I got the call from MPP, it was a no-brainer because we know that the march towards federal legalization is going to happen through the states,” she said. “And we have to keep doing that until we get action at the federal level.”