Reggie Gaudino speaks at the CRI riverside chat as Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado and Nathaniel Inglis Steinfeld listen.
When Illinois passed the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act (CRTA) in 2019, Governor J.B. Pritzker knew that the law was just the first step in the journey to build a thriving statewide cannabis industry and mitigate the harm from “the convoluted and ineffective laws that were on the books.”
“We’d need to change the public perception around cannabis, fight back against misinformation, bring more scientific study into the industry, and have honest, productive conversations about the opportunities associated with legalization,” he said.
Those tasks are now the charge of DPI’s Cannabis Research Institute (CRI), which celebrated its launch November 15 with a riverside chat, “From Seed to Social Impact.”
Wearing a green tie that he joked could represent either DPI or cannabis, Pritzker was one of several dignitaries who spoke before the chat, noting that Illinois has the most diverse collection of employees in the cannabis industry in the United States.
From seed to social impact
In the panel discussion, attended by about 40 invited guests and also livestreamed, CRI Director Reggie Gaudino began by saying that Pritzker’s collaborative approach and vision for equity was what drew him to Illinois from California.
“Between the vision and the way that the University of Illinois stood this up,” he said, “it presented a very unique opportunity which I saw as perhaps the best way to get some of these things accomplished.”
In a discussion moderated by Mila Marshall, who writes and edits the “Cannabis Corner” column for Chicago News Weekly and helped write the bill creating the CRTA, Gaudino and the other panelists talked about their vision for CRI and the cannabis industry in Illinois.
Donell Barnett, behavioral health adviser at the Illinois Department of Human Services and CRI’s program officer, pointed out that the CRTA lays out specific mission requirements for IDHS, one of which is to collect data and inform public health policy.
Nathaniel Inglis Steinfeld, deputy cannabis regulation oversight officer for research and data in the state of Illinois, said the reason cannabis legalization came about in Illinois through a house bill and not a ballot initiative was to infuse cannabis research with equity. Pointing out that cannabis is the third largest crop in the state of Illinois by dollar value — accounting for $2 billion in retail sales and 10,000 jobs, he said — “we need to bring the resources of the state to help the people in the state.”
As a legislator, Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado (3rd), is charged with creating public policy. As a representative for Chicago’s Northwest Side, she has constituents suffering judicial repercussions from the war on drugs and wants to make sure that the industry gives back to communities affected by it.
In creating a brand-new industry in need of regulatory structures, Delgado says, “you’re trying to grab information from different places, and you hope it’s good information.” She welcomed the research to come from CRI.
“I’m going to dive headfirst into it,” she said. “Do I know anything about cannabis? No. But I’m going to learn as much as I can.”
Diving into the research
Purely from a scientific standpoint, there’s a lot for Gaudino, a molecular geneticist by training, to work with in cannabis, as well as industrial hemp, a crop that has not been improved since the 1930s:
- Medical therapeutics and drug discovery to treat chronic pain, anxiety, and other conditions yet to be studied
- Biofuels
- Textiles and other manufacturing. Gaudino noted that hemp has been touted as a high-quality source for graphene, a strong, light, conductive substance made of carbon atoms, and that Mercedes-Benz has used hemp in their cars since 1994
Marshall pointed out that some strains of hemp have been effective in brownfield remediation. In general, though, Gaudino said the stigma surrounding cannabis and hemp has hampered research into its benefits.
By “looking at the plant in a way that is different than what we did before,” he said, CRI hopes to move beyond that stigma and use cannabis to its fullest potential.
A collaborative effort
To conduct this research, Gaudino plans to work closely with the agronomy programs within UIUC’s College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences. As a bench scientist, delving into genomic study and genetic markers to select traits is where he thrives.
Under the guidance of community engagement manager Christina Sansone, CRI is also cultivating a community engagement partnership with UIC’s School of Public Health, ultimately focused on a program across the U of I system and state to inform research and policy.
Another aspect of CRI is its programs with University of Illinois Springfield and community colleges statewide that are starting cannabis certification programs.
“We want to bring that camaraderie, that collaboration,” Gaudino said, “to every possible corner of the state of Illinois.”
On the left: Governor JB Pritzker, University of Illinois System President Tim Killeen, Reggie Gaudino, Eva-Dina Delgado, Nathaniel Inglis Steinfeld, Donell Barnett, and Dulce Quintero before CRI’s riverside chat.
On the right: DPI Director of Research Venkat Venkatakrishnan, DPI Interim Executive Director Deba Dutta, and Illinois Secretary of Human Services Dulce Quintero sit in the audience during CRI’s riverside chat
Author: Jeanie Chung