Illinois cannabis industry cautious on child-safety bill, questions focus on regulated products

By Cat Barker | The Center Square contributor
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – A newly introduced bill in the Illinois Senate would add new child-safety education, warning labels and storage requirements for cannabis products, prompting cautious support, and questions, from the state’s cannabis industry.

Senate Bill 2866, sponsored by Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Frankfort, would expand child-safety requirements for cannabis dispensaries.

Tiffany Ingram, executive director of the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois, said the industry supports protecting children but wants clarity on how the proposal would be implemented and what issue it is intended to address.

“I appreciate Sen. Hastings introducing this legislation,” Ingram said. “Of course, first and foremost, we want to make sure these products are kept out of the hands of little people and bigger little people like teenagers.”

Ingram said cannabis businesses are open to working with lawmakers on child safety but emphasized that dispensaries are already subject to extensive regulations.

“We are tightly regulated,” Ingram said. “There is a track-and-trace system that tracks everything from seed to sale. Regulators are in our stores several times a month, if not weekly.”

While the bill focuses on regulated cannabis, Ingram said many incidents involving children and cannabis exposure stem from unregulated intoxicating hemp products, such as delta-8 THC.

“What I think is interesting about this is that the products that we often see challenges with are actually not regulated cannabis products,” she said. “A lot of times, when you hear that a child got a hold of a cannabis product, what they really got was an unregulated product, but that distinction is lost on people.”

At the federal level, Ingram noted that Congress has already acted to close the so-called hemp loophole that allowed intoxicating hemp products to proliferate, creating a timeline for states to unwind those businesses.

“Congress has already spoken on this by closing the federal hemp loophole,” she said. “By November 2026, these businesses are going to have to start being unwound.”

Some states have moved more quickly to align with the new federal definitions. Ingram pointed to Ohio as an example.

“You see states like Ohio and others that are already starting to adopt the new federal definitions that closed the loophole and starting to unwind these businesses quicker than the [2026] requirement,” she said.

Illinois, however, has not taken similar statewide action, making it an outlier, according to Ingram.

“Illinois has not been in that camp,” she said.

As state lawmakers debate child-safety rules for regulated cannabis, Chicago has moved to crack down on unregulated intoxicating hemp products. On Jan. 21, the City Council voted 32–16 to ban the sale of most intoxicating hemp products, citing concerns the items are marketed to minors and fall outside the state’s cannabis regulations.

Despite her concerns, Ingram said the cannabis industry supports education efforts aimed at preventing children from accessing cannabis products — as long as those efforts are targeted appropriately.

“Education is always good,” she said. “It’s just a matter of what we are trying to solve for.”

She added that the industry wants to work with lawmakers to better understand the intent behind the bill.