Gov. JB Pritzker and leaders within the Normal Meeting have introduced their help for House Bill 4293, a invoice regulating the sale of intoxicating hemp merchandise throughout the state. I’ve fought to maintain the Highland Park group, significantly our kids, protected from unregulated and deceptively marketed merchandise. However this can be a struggle no single city, village, or metropolis can win on their very own.
This can be a drawback that persists in communities throughout Illinois, and defending our kids would require a coordinated statewide effort. I’m grateful the governor has stepped up on this matter, and I help the measure within the strongest phrases attainable.
Many local municipalities have handed laws proscribing the sale of those intoxicating hemp merchandise, together with prohibiting gross sales, elevating the authorized age of possession and rising licensing necessities. Nevertheless, these measures have restricted efficacy when shoppers can merely drive quarter-hour to the following city and buy these merchandise with not one of the similar restrictions and laws.
To make sure that all our kids are protected and our communities are in live performance, the Normal Meeting should act and go complete statewide laws.
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Throughout Illinois, there have been tales of youngsters and even youthful youngsters who’ve been hospitalized after consuming intoxicating hemp merchandise. These merchandise include extremely excessive doses of THC however are offered at fuel stations and comfort shops with little oversight. Typically, they’re marketed to look almost equivalent to widespread snack manufacturers, encouraging consumers to eat a complete pack regardless of the huge dose of unregulated THC every product comprises.
That’s why along with elevating the minimal age for buying these merchandise to 21, this laws bans misleading advertising or advertising designed to focus on youngsters. Our kids will not be a money supply for the hemp trade, and we reject underhanded and manipulative advertising ways designed to attract minors in to purchase a product that they’ll’t perceive or predict the results of.
Hashish legalization has been an enormous financial driver for Illinois, and it has relieved a generations-long burden on communities disproportionately affected by the conflict on medication. However legalization was attainable as a result of it went hand in hand with regulation, and intoxicating hemp merchandise exploit a loophole to bypass these necessities. Those that worth these merchandise will proceed to have an avenue to buy them — the identical avenue as shoppers of authorized hashish throughout the state beneath the state’s current market laws on protected testing and dosage necessities for dispensary gross sales.
We can’t ignore the hazard these merchandise current to our kids any longer. Small companies are the spine of municipalities like ours, however companies that depend on misleading practices and prey on our youth do not make our communities stronger. I’m supported on this effort by:
- Village of Roselle Mayor David Pileski
- Village of Minooka Mayor Ric Offerman
- Village of Elburn Mayor Jeffrey Walter
- Metropolis of Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin
- Village of Sleepy Hole President Stephan Pickett
- Village of Genoa Mayor Jonathon Brust
- Buffalo Grove Village President Eric Smith
- Waukegan Mayor Ann B. Taylor
Collectively, we urge members of the Illinois Home to go HB 4293 in the course of the upcoming lame-duck legislative session.
Mayor Nancy Rotering, Highland Park
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Solitary confinement is torture
David Shapiro’s op-ed in regards to the misuse of solitary confinement within the state of Illinois is shifting and enlightening.
We wish to assume that we dwell within the trendy world the place barbarism and torture have been carried out away with. We wish to assume that the one torture occurring on the planet occurs in international locations with out the supposed decency of what we name Western civilization, however the reality is that we have now merely give you new types of torture and new methods to abuse those that have been incarcerated, typically unfairly and actually because they can’t afford entry to certified authorized assist.
Illinois House Bill 4828 must be handed by the Senate and signed by Gov. JB Pritzker instantly.
Nancy Somora Gebhardt, Huntley
Defining corruption
I learn with curiosity Jon Seidel’s current article on the Madigan corruption trial, together with the discussions among the many choose and attorneys about defining “corruptly” in jury directions. It doesn’t shock me that beneath the present Supreme Court docket’s “steerage,” decrease courts wrestle with this notion.
The present Supreme Court docket wouldn’t know corruption if it bit them within the butt. Most Individuals don’t have any bother with the idea: Public servants act corruptly when their actions serve a private curiosity moderately than a public curiosity.
Steve Bohan, Bourbonnais
The toll of caregiving
The current article on adults dropping time from work to take care of ageing mother and father, by enterprise and financial system reporter Amy Yee, is such a well timed article. She did a tremendous job writing it. Sadly for society, particularly American society, it is a matter that may get more difficult to reconcile within the years forward!
I went by a horrible expertise taking good care of my mom. I nonetheless have PTSD from this example. I don’t want caregiving like I went by on my worst enemy.
Thanks once more for placing out a terrific article.
Eva Olson, Woodstock
