A years-long dispute over a cannabis cultivation license is headed to the Illinois Supreme Court as Curative Health Cultivation LLC and Medponics Illinois LLC battle over a license to grow cannabis for the state’s medical and adult-use markets, according to an NBC Chicago report.
Curative, which is based in Aurora, Ill., and owned by multistate cannabis operator Columbia Care, won the cultivation license in 2015, lost it following a dispute in a lower court and ultimately won it back on appeal, NBC Chicago reported.
Medponics wants to establish operations in Zion, Ill., and has been backed by the city in its bid for the license, according to the news outlet.
The license could potentially be worth $100 million, NBC Chicago reported, and the arguments in the case focus on the vetting process used to issue the initial cultivation licenses in 2015.
Medponics has argued that although Curative received the highest score on its application, it should have been disqualified because its operations would be too close to a residential area, according to NBC Chicago.
In lower court, Judge Michael Fusz sided with Medponics in a 2017 lawsuit, ruling that the state did not properly apply state law when awarding the license to Curative, the news outlet reported. However, Fusz also said in his ruling that the license should not necessarily go to Medponics, which received the fifth highest score on its application.
Fusz’s ruling was partially overturned when an appeals court later ruled that the zoning issue was more complicated than the lower court found, and the license was reinstated with Curative, NBC Chicago reported.
The Illinois Supreme Court is now expected to take up the case in early 2021.
Ben Williams, left, and Wendell Robbins III, founders of Highway Hemp, are working on expanding their company's reach.
Cannabidiol (CBD), the star compound of hemp, may be known for its relaxing properties, but one company has uncovered how to make a relaxing—and even intoxicating—product using an entirely different portion of the plant: hempseed.
Highway Vodka, a company founded by lifelong friends Ben Williams and Wendell Robbins III, had been seven years in the making when it launched in 2019.
Williams began distilling vodka as a hobby. But when he visited a friend in California who owned a cannabis dispensary (and is a fellow vodka-distilling enthusiast), he met others who were distilling their vodka with cannabis. It inspired him to try the same with hemp.
Now, the Houston-based company has become the first Black-owned distillery in the city, according to Highway Vodka, and is expanding its distribution beyond Texas to include Georgia, California and Florida.
“It’s not about hemp flavor, and it’s not about CBD, to be honest,” Williams says. “It was really about what the plant does for my particular process.”
When Williams began experimenting with different hemp vodka formulations, the crop was not yet legal in the U.S., so Williams began sourcing from Canada. Eventually, federal farm bills in 2014 and 2018 opened the legal landscape for hemp, allowing Williams to expand his experimentation with hemp grown in the U.S.
He tried different parts of the plant as well as different forms of the grain, from full raw hempseed to roasted grains.
“I’ve played with every part of the plant I could get my hands on,” Williams says. “The thing that’s right under your nose and most readily available turned out to be what I needed: hulled hempseed.”
Williams spent years honing the formula. Then, it all clicked.
“One day I was just being lazy and dumped everything into the still [the apparatus used to distill vodka]. Right off the rip at a super high proof, it was just better. It had a better smell, feel,” Williams says. “We immediately started proofing it down, making cuts and filtering it. … It was literally just the best stuff we had ever made.”
That formulation consisted of corn, water and hulled hempseed. From that day, Williams and Robbins continued honing that formulation, trying out distilling it a wide number of times and settling on six for the “purest, sweetest” taste, Williams says.
Williams, who owned a small bar and also opened a restaurant called Lucille’s 1913 with his brother, Chris, began taking the vodka to his establishments to let people sample it.
“It was just consistently winning,” Williams says. “I was like, ‘Let’s just try to make a go at it.’”
The Hemp Touch
Vodka is typically made with fermented grains that are then put through a distilling process. This can include corn, sorghum, rye, rice or wheat.
But hemp grain is unique in that it has a high fat content. And while the vodka doesn’t necessarily have the taste of hemp, Williams says the additional seed does give it a different mouthfeel.
“At distilling six times, after it goes through the process of going through the still, you’ll notice it has a viscosity difference. I don’t think it’s thick or creamy—it just has a little more body than your typical vodka,” Williams says. “What we’ve found is that oil and those fats coat your palate and smooth [the taste of the vodka] out, so there’s no burn. It makes it easy to drink neat and straight up. It also holds the sweetness from the corn on your palate.”
The two also found that the hemp actually produces higher yields of alcohol. While yeast nutrients, which are used to produce more alcohol, can produce an unwanted flavor, Williams says, hemp did not.
“I found out different proteins in hemp act as a superfuel for my yeast,” Williams says.
Texas Roots
As Highway Hemp Vodka gains popularity and expands its distribution, Williams he’s looking to expand his sourcing network as well.
While the two partners were dialing in their formula, Williams was searching for “the fattest hempseed I could find.” He settled on a supplier in Minnesota and is currently sourcing anywhere between 550 to 800 pounds of seed a week.
Williams says he’s currently in the process of finding a Texas-based source for the seed. But it’s been a challenge, as many growers in Texas kicked off 2020—the state’s first year of hemp production—with fiber varieties.
Still, his search will continue as Highway Hemp Vodka grows. In addition to retailers selling the vodka in several states, it is available in more areas via online ordering at reservebar.com.
The company is also working on putting out new products in the upcoming year, including honing a formula for hemp whiskey.
“We have no choice but to make everything,” Williams says. “We’re just having fun with it.”
Henryk Sadura | Adobe Stock
Illinois Governor Expunges Nearly Half a Million Cannabis Records
Gov. J.B. Pritzker also issued pardons for thousands of low-level cannabis-related convictions.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Dec. 31 that he would expunge nearly half a million cannabis records and issue pardons for thousands more low-level cannabis convictions, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report.
The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, which passed in 2019 to legalize adult-use cannabis in Illinois, mandated that 47,000 cannabis-related arrest records between 2013 and 2019 be expunged by Jan. 1, the news outlet reported.
Pritzker’s New Year’s Eve announcement pardoned 9,129 low-level cannabis conviction records and expunged 492,192 cannabis arrest records, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Lulla | Adobe Stock
Alabama Lawmaker Plans to Reintroduce Medical Cannabis Legalization Bill
Medical cannabis legislation passed the Alabama Senate during the 2020 session, but failed to clear the House.
Missouri Rep. Shamed Dogan has filed legislation that would place an adult-use cannabis legalization measure on the state’s 2022 ballot, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The measure, House Joint Resolution 30, is a constitutional amendment. It would leave Missouri’s medical cannabis program intact, but would repeal the text of the 2018 constitutional amendment that legalized medical cannabis, which would ultimately scrap the state’s controversial licensing process and limited license structure, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Instead, Dogan’s proposal would set up a cannabis licensing process that is similar to licensing any other business in the state, according to the news outlet.
The measure also directs the state to release anyone incarcerated for “non-violent, marijuana only offenses that are no longer illegal in the state of Missouri,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, as well as to stop monitoring those on probation or parole for those offenses.
In addition, the proposal would require Missouri courts to expunge civil and criminal records related to “all non-violent, marijuana-only offenses that are no longer illegal” within 60 days of the ballot measure’s passage, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The measure would levy a 12% tax on adult-use cannabis and a 4% tax on medical cannabis, the news outlet reported, and the revenue generated would be directed to the Smarter and Safer Missouri Fund, which would support the Missouri Veterans Commission, infrastructure projects and drug treatment programs.
Meanwhile, Missourians for a New Approach has announced plans for a 2022 ballot initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis after an unsuccessful signature campaign to get the issue before voters in 2020.
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