In 2014 I had a grow that was busted in Indiana, I’ve talked a lot about this. The judge told me after researching me and the details of the case that “you would have a bright future if you would focus your talents on something in the legitimate world.” So I took his advice after he accepted my plea and I moved to Colorado one year later when I was off of probation.
Colorado along with Washington state were the first two states to legalize cannabis for recreational use in the US in 2012, due to this fact (at least in Colorado, I can’t speak to Washington because I haven’t been there) it was very much a mom and pop arena. Yes the major MSO players were there as well, but being one of the first states to legalize there was a great opportunity for some of the little guys to get a piece of the pie. This allowed for a more democratic process for consumers to have more choice on where they sourced their cannabis, prices were very competitive as well.
Also the legislation in CO concerning zoning allowed for many dispensaries to be in a single municipality. While quality waned quickly and was frankly never on the level of mom and pop dispensaries in California for instance under prop 215 passed in 1996, there were a couple great players that I used to source my cannabis from like L’Eagle and Verde Natural. There were also the “Walmart of weed” dispensaries like Lightshade, The Green Solution and Ascend. I lived in CO for almost seven years and moved to the greater Chicagoland Area in November of 2022.
I have never been inside a dispensary in IL, but I have unfortunately smoked some of the cannabis from dispensaries at events. When you grow your own you should have reserves for years and until recently (since I just pulled my first Midwest harvest in 11 years) I was smoking hash that I have compressed from grows I harvested in Denver. When you’ve been smoking your own home grown small batch cannabis and hash, free of pesticides, PGRs and other toxic grow processes most grows use in this state and you try to smoke dispensary cannabis you will generally have a negative visceral reaction to it, which I always do.
Multi-state operators and chains run shit in this state and the results are so unfortunate. Not only have we created an oligopoly in this state with dispensaries, these same MSOs are the ones that lobbied congress to begin with that have created our current structure. So what are the results? Only a few select players really exist in the industry, creating ridiculous prices that I’ve never even seen in the black market (now politically corrected as the “legacy market”) back in the day. Secondly just like in CO no one gives a fuck about quality. The mass produced, pesticide and PRG laced bud grown with drip emitters in rockwool (which can be recycled allegedly but never is) which usually fill landfills is just fucking horrible, but it’s what I see in most grows in IL. I’m specifically speaking to what I’ve seen from business people posting pictures of their grows in IL, as I haven’t visited these grows myself.
These same MSOs are ones that stifle social equity in the cannabis space. As I can tell you as a volunteer with the Cannabis Equity IL Coalition social equity is something that legislators promised when legalization was introduced but has largely been an unfulfilled promise to date.
While growing your own cannabis is what I am making my life mission in any state, IL in my experience is the most egregious of the 19 legal states I have visited in the past 10 years. The quality in Michigan is just as horrible, but the prices reflect that. The MSO’s are in bed with the politicians which after meeting with my representatives personally on lobby day in Springfield a couple weeks ago I can tell you are as apathetic and ignorant about the policies that govern the current state of affairs in the recreational market in IL today as any other state. One love.
