For Chicago businesses that sell hemp-THC products, or those looking to get into the segment, Wednesday’s city council vote was a mix of good news and bad news.
First, the bad: The Chicago City Council voted 32-16 to ban the sale of most (but not all) “cannabinoid hemp” products, including edibles, flower and vapes.
The good news? Hemp-THC beverages, and related beverage additives, are exempted from that prohibition.
Or, as one alderman who voted against the ban put it: “This would make it legal if you drink it with a straw, but illegal if you chew it with your mouth,” Ald. Daniel La Spata noted, according to media reports.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson could still veto the ban, which is scheduled to take effect on April 1. He has previously expressed concerns about enforcing the ban and shutting small businesses out of a growing segment.
“As we’ve seen in the past with alcohol and marijuana prohibitions, when you make something illegal, you inevitably create a black market,” Johnson told local media. “We don’t want children to have access to an intoxicating item. And we don’t want an underground market that punishes small businesses who have been operating within the law.”
Chicago’s ordinance bans the sale of any hemp-THC product to those under 21. Further, it says restaurants, bars, hotels, theaters, bowling alleys and other venues that have a “consumption on premises – incidental activity license” may sell hemp-THC beverages, secondary to the sale of alcohol. Retailers with packaged goods licenses may also sell hemp-THC drinks, as well as businesses with a tavern license.
Legal hemp-THC beverages must contain no more than 10 milligrams of THC per 12 fluid ounces, according to the ordinance.
Some CBD products, like topical creams, are also excluded from the ban.
The ordinance does not changes operations at the city's dispensaries.
Chicago’s move comes amid a looming federal ban on virtually all intoxicating hemp-THC products, which is scheduled to take effect this November. A bipartisan bill introduced earlier this month, however, seeks to extend that deadline to November 2028.
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