A newly filed lawsuit has accused the Illinois Department of Agriculture of discriminating against women- and minority-owned businesses seeking cannabis transport licenses.
The state requires transportation companies to hold a special license for bringing cannabis products from producers to distributors.
In 2021, the department expedited the transporter licensing process by temporarily lowering the compliance criteria.
According to the lawsuit, the decision only benefitted larger, mostly white- and male-owned medical cannabis cultivators who were already licensed to grow in the state.
The plaintiffs called the sped-up licensing process a “nail in the coffin” since it happened before any of them were licensed, a traditional process that took at least a year.
The early applicants “were quickly approved for operations [and] were already transporting their own cannabis around the state … and had been doing so for well over a year.”
The plaintiffs, which include Hands to Heart, Reliavan, Fade Express and Piff Patch, are seeking unspecified damages for lost profits along with attorneys’ fees.
