Steans, a Chicago Democrat, has said the program could include additional licenses for processing and transportation of cannabis and for craft cultivation centers.

Pritzker told Capitol News Illinois in a podcast interview last week that there will have to be new entrants into the market, as well as added licensing fees for existing growers.

“Some of them will be new entrances, no doubt about it,” Pritzker said. “Some of them will be existing growers that want to get into the adult-use side of the business, but they’ll all have to pay a licensing fee to get into the business.”

But it is unclear how much those licenses would cost, how many would be granted, when they would be made available or in which fiscal year the revenue resulting from them would be realized.

Pro-legalization lawmakers and Pritzker’s office have also said criminal justice reforms would be included in the package for those incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses.

“The legalization of adult-use cannabis will bring fairness into a criminal justice system that has been unfair in particular to people of color more often than to others,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker also said it will be important for the state to regulate potency and purity of cannabis, as it is already being purchased, potentially unsafely, on the black market in the state.

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